Boehringer Ingelheim Pleased with 2013 Financial Year

The research-driven pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim is pleased with the 2013 financial year.

Despite some challenges, the company succeeded in increasing its operating income and the return on net sales. Boehringer Ingelheim generated net sales of around €14.1 billion, which represents an increase of 1.4%, currency-adjusted (-4.3% in euro terms). This resulted in a 2.4 percentage point improvement in the return on net sales to 15%. For the current financial year, the company expects net sales to remain at a comparable level to that of 2013. Boehringer Ingelheim now employs more than 47,400 people worldwide, which is three% more than in the previous year.

"2013 was for Boehringer Ingelheim a year marked by many successes and some challenges," said Professor Andreas Barner, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors of Boehringer Ingelheim, at the's Annual Press Conference in Ingelheim. "We concentrated on continuing our work on the long-term development of the company." With afatinib, for the targeted treatment of a specific form of lung cancer, Boehringer Ingelheim last year successfully entered the oncology market. The compound was launched in the US under the brand name of GlLOTRIF and the launch has in the meantime started in the European Union under the name of GIOTRIF. A second new product launch in 2013 was STRIVERDI RESPIMAT (olodaterol) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Further Launches Planned

In the next 2 years alone, Boehringer Ingelheim is planning more than 10 new launches in eight indications: diabetes, COPD, asthma, lung cancer, the rare disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a rare form of leukaemia (AML) and the treatment and prevention of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.

For the last mentioned indication, the company received marketing approval from the FDA for PRADAXA at the beginning of April. The company is currently working on 90 research and development projects. In the current financial year, Boehringer Ingelheim is planning to take on nine new investigational compounds in Phase II clinical studies. "We will strengthen our therapeutic areas immunology and disorders of the central nervous system, CNS," said Barner.