Corporate Magazine 2012 - Boehringer Ingelheim

esearch & developmentperspectives for medical innovationCHANGING PHARMACEUTICAL ENVIRONMENT[ challenges for boehringer ingelheim ]R&D + M at Boehringer Ingelheim faces thechallenge of identifying and address highunmet medical needs as well as identifyingsynergies in disease and technology clusters.discoverydevelopmenton-marketLower salesexpectations(price, pricecuts)Access, reimbursementand pricing increasinglya challengeEarlier andmore aggressivecompetitionby genericsHIGH UNMETMEDICALNEEDSHigherdevelopmentcostsLowerprobabilityof successIncremental innovationnot recognised anymoreRisk-adjusted cash flows (cumulative)Nominal cash flows (cumulative)innovation for novel drug concepts andemerging technologies. In addition, wewill focus on smaller indications with ahigh unmet medical need.Disease clustersSynergies in researching diseasesshould be exploited in the future byidentifying groups of diseases from oneor more therapeutic areas which couldbe targeted by the same mechanism(disease cluster).Technology clustersIn addition to the TA-specific aspects,the company worked on general topicswith the primary goals of identifyingtechnology clusters. Such clusters willenable drug discovery by complementingour technical approaches, therebyenlarging the exploitable target spaceand increasing the chances of therapeuticadvance.Such technologies could include therapeuticvaccines, gene therapy, regenerativemedicine and new biotherapeutictechnologies.FOCUS ON CREATIVITY ANDGLOBAL SCIENCE NETWORKWe count on the creativity ofour employees to respond tothe challenges of the future.Our goal is to bring togetherunprecedented science in thecontext of a global network tohelp us define the attractivedrug concepts of the future.Potential advantages of such diseaseclusters are a fast path to clinical proofof concept with an increased probabilityof success by starting clinical developmentin indications with the strongestconcept-to-disease link. For all diseaseclusters, potential synergies in researchand development can be leveraged.The future of our research and development61