Boehringer Inaugurates BioPharma Plant in Austria
Boehringer Ingelheim has inaugurated its Large Scale Cell Culture (LSCC) biopharmaceutical plant at Vienna, Austria. Built over a period of six years at a cost of more than €700 million, the German drugmaker said this is the single largest investment in its history.
The facility, which Boehringer also bills as one of the most advanced of its kind, widens the company’s global biopharmaceutical network and ensures what it says is a “high degree of digitalization and automation through smart technologies and artificial intelligence applications.” In the LSCC, the drugmaker will produce biopharmaceuticals for its own product pipeline as well as contracting for other companies as a CDMO.
At the heart of the production complex are fermenters with a total volume of 185,000 l that Boehringer said will expand mammalian large scale capacity by 30%. Technically, the facility is designed to allow changeovers from one product to another within a short time as well as simultaneous manufacture of different products.
“With our facilities set up as multi-product plants and flexible line structures, we are able to supply a variety of molecule formats, such as monoclonal antibodies, enzymes, cytokines and other recombinant proteins for patients with unmet medical needs,” said Uwe Buecheler, head of the Biopharmaceuticals business unit.
In the interest of reaching the many patients whose diseases cannot yet be adequately treated, the company is “committed to investing in the development of additional production platforms for biologics based on the latest technologies,” added CEO Hubertus von Baumbach.
Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist
