Annual Report 2005 - Boehringer Ingelheim

Our strength in R & D + Medicine
Research and Development has been the foundation of Boehringer Ingelheim’s
success so far and continues to be the major driver of innovative, new
medicines. We recognise the unique opportunities and challenges that medical
needs and the health environment present. We have consequently committed
ourselves to discovering, profiling and developing new products of high
therapeutic value for patients and healthcare systems.
New biological entities (NBEs)
We are widely recognised as a world leader in all
aspects of biopharmaceutical manufacturing,
from early process development to large-scale
commercial manufacturing in microbial as well
as mammalian expression systems. Combined
with our disease expertise in key therapeutic
areas, our strategy is to create a comprehensive
NBE programme addressing unmet medical
needs in several indication areas, thus expanding
our proprietary NBE product portfolio beyond
actilyse® (first generation t-PA), metalyse®
(second generation t-PA), imukin® (interferon
gamma) and beromun® (tumour necrosis factor).
In order to fully exploit the synergistic potential
of our internal capabilities, we have established
centralised expertise in human antibody drug
discovery at our research site in Vienna, Austria,
facilitated by in-licensing of key technologies
from MorphoSys (phage display) and Medarex
(genetically modified mice). We have also
strengthened our protein technology infrastructure
across research sites and allocated dedicated
biology resources in key therapeutic areas.
Boehringer Ingelheim A n n u A l R e p o R t 2 0 0 5
During 2005, we expanded our NBE discovery
programme to include some 10 discovery projects,
a first step towards a steady stream of innovative
NBE therapeutics feeding our development
pipeline. While our key focus is on human monoclonal
antibody projects, we are also exploring
treatment options for cardiovascular and metabolic
diseases with optimised bioactive therapeutic
proteins (OBTs). In-licensing promising NBE
candidates is an important complement to
in-house research activities and to this end we
have in-licensed AbGn-168, a humanised
monoclonal antibody that induces apoptosis of
activated T cells, from AbGenomics Corporation,
Taiwan. AbGn-168 holds promise in delivering
long-lasting control of T cell mediated diseases,
including autoimmune diseases.
Drug Discovery and Non-Clinical Development
Insight into the workings of diseases at a
molecular level is an important prerequisite for
identifying promising targets for new drugs.
In this context, integrating state-of–the-art
technologies to enhance the R&D value chain
is the key to success in pharmaceutical R&D.
Despite significant progress in recent years,
unmet medical needs continue to be great and
growing due to changes in the environment and
people living longer.