Main disease areas include cardio-renal-metabolic (CRM) diseases, mental health, pulmonary fibrosis, systemic sclerosis, and chronic liver disease, some of them in the late-stage development of the company’s strong innovation pipeline. The expansion will create 110 additional jobs and boost medicine exports from Greece, particularly of Jardiance®, a medication used to treat type 2 diabetes, chronic (long-term) heart failure and chronic kidney disease, to the US market.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis attended the groundbreaking ceremony at the Koropi site today, alongside the Minister of State, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Development. He said: “I am delighted to once again visit this plant which, as we have heard, produces some of the most innovative antidiabetic medicines, and to see the excellent organization as well as the high level of expertise and professionalism. I am also very pleased with the progress that the company has made; with the 700 skilled employees whose number will increase by more than 100 when this investment is completed; and, of course, with this important shift towards innovation. I want to thank the company for its continuous trust in Greece. But first and foremost, the company trusts you, the employees, not just the government or the wider environment. All together you constitute a team, building a better tomorrow, a structure with very strong foundations and that is what we are celebrating here today. You showcase the great importance we associate with the creation of value through innovation. It is a strategic goal that we as a state also embrace: to make our country a reference point for the pharmaceutical industry.”

Putting innovative production technologies in place to support successful Research & Development (R&D) is a key investment driver at Boehringer. In 2022, the company’s global expenditure in Human Pharma R&D amounted to 4.6 billion EUR. 25% of Human Pharma net sales are reinvested to advance science and cutting-edge research to find new therapies and treatments for patients who are waiting for new solutions in areas of high unmet patient needs. More than half of its 53,000 workforce and over 60% of R&D budgets are invested in Europe.

“We have been present in Greece since 1996, and have gradually expanded our operations in the country,” said Hubertus von Baumbach, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors at Boehringer Ingelheim. “This expansion investment will bring some of our most innovative therapies to an increasing number of patients globally.”

Boehringer started the production facility in Koropi in 1975. In 2020, the company announced multi-year investments to expand the site and its production capacity. The Koropi plant is the only industrial facility of a multinational pharmaceutical company in Greece producing innovative medicines.