Boehringer Ingelheim's U.S. Headquarters

Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation is one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, its international operations include 137 affiliates in 47 countries and 38,000 employees. The company researches, develops, manufactures and markets products for human and veterinary medicine. Boehringer Ingelheim, a family-owned company founded in 1885, posted sales of 10.6 billion euro in 2006.

Recently, the Connecticut Development Authority approved a sales and use tax exemption in an amount not to exceed $5 million on the Boehringer Ingelheim’s $84 million of construction-related expenses at its existing facility in Ridgefield, CT. The planned expansion of the company’s U.S. headquarters include a new R&D building, a safety assessment building, a potent compound facility, cogeneration system, new administrative building, and new IT infrastructure.

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, expanding as other Big Pharma firms cut back, has started construction on a $65 million research and development facility on its 294-acre campus in Ridgefield, the second major expansion there this year. The privately-held German drugmaker, with its U.S. headquarters and about 3,000 employees in Ridgefield, said the new facility "will handle production of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in early development activities." The new, 72,000-square-foot facility will replace a smaller, older building on the campus. The new facility will be attached to the old building until at least 2015 when the construction — to be completed in stages — is expected to be finished. Jim Baxter, senior vice president of development for U.S. operations, said the pharmaceutical giant chose to keep the new facility in Connecticut because it is vital to the rest of the reseach that is done in Ridgefield. The new facility isn't expected to add jobs, at least not intially, but shows the company's commitment to its Connecticut reseach facility, Baxter said. In August, the company began work on a $42 million drug safety assessment building in Ridgefield, for non-clinical safety studies. That building is scheduled to be completed in 2013. Together, the two buildings represent an investment of more than $100 million in Connecticut. "When they say the site is critical to BI's future, they mean it," Baxter said, of the company's senior management. Boehringer Ingelheim has more than a dozen buildings on its campus, including 10 that are connected to each other. U.S. Sen Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, both praised Boehringer Ingelheim for expanding groundbreaking research in Connecticut.