Boehringer Ingelheim's US Headquarters, United States of America

Germany-based privately held pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim is involved in drug discovery, development and manufacturing. The company has invested more than $350m in 2011 to boost its operations in the US. It announced a number of projects to expand its US headquarters campus.

The planned expansions include construction of a new research and development building, a safety assessment building, a potent compound facility, cogeneration system and new administrative building, plus IT infrastructure.

US headquarters

The US headquarters of Boehringer Ingelheim is located on a 294-acre site, on Ridgebury road on the border of Ridgefield and Danbury, in the state Connecticut. It features a number of buildings for office, research and development (R&D) and safety assessment.

Construction / contractors involved in the investment project

The existing research and development centre in Ridgefield was originally designed by Flad & Associates. It was built in four phases with 40,050ft2 of R&D space, 109,800ft2 of laboratory space and an 88,690ft2 safety assessment building.

Expansion of Boehringer Ingelheim's US operations

Ground was broken for a new safety assessment building within the headquarters campus in August 2011.

The new building will be used for conducting non-clinical safety studies on the drugs being researched or developed by the company. It will have a footprint of 63,000ft2.

The construction is expected to be completed by 2013 at an estimated investment of $42.5m.

The company announced $65m investment on an R&D facility at its headquarters in November 2011. The facility is being built as an extension to the existing R&D facility at the campus.

The existing facility has become old and unsuitable for the latest technologies. The new facility will help the company overcome this problem.

Drugs to be produced at the Connnecticut-based R&D facility

The $65m facility will have 72,000ft2 space for R&D and production activities. The pilot plant at the facility will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for use in drugs which are in the early stages of development. It will provide a chemical processing environment to transform the new chemical entities discovered in the company's R&D facilities to APIs in sufficient quantities to support the development of life saving drugs

Capacity of the new Boehringer Ingelheim R&D facility at Ridgefield

The new $65m R&D facility will be suitable only for drugs in the first two phases of development.

The third stage of development needs testing on a large scale population, which requires higher quantities of the drug.

The products that are developed and approved at the facility will, therefore, be sent for further research and development to the company's full scale R&D facilities in Ohio and Virginia in the US, as well as those in Germany and Italy.

CDA agreed to provide a $5m Sales & Use tax rebate to Boehringer Ingelheim for creating jobs through the expansion of the headquarters at Ridgefield.

The project is expected to create about 400 jobs. The CDA approved the exemption based on Boehringer Ingelheim's proposal to invest $84m in the headquarters expansion.

Other projects of Boehringer in the US

As part of expansion of operations, Boehringer announced a number of projects in the US in 2011. Investments made by the company in 2011, other than those at the headquarters, included an $89m investment on expanding a biological manufacturing facility of the company in St. Joseph's Missouri, investment in a new animal vaccine research facility in Sioux Center, Iowa, and a $50m investment in a High Containment Operations Facility in Columbus, Ohio.

The investments made by Boehringer are expected to significantly benefit the local economy. The company expects to develop innovative and new drugs and attain more patents through the new facilities.