Boehringer Ingelheim, a Germany based pharma major, has posted strong growth 50.6 per cent in net profits during the year ended December 2015 due to lower tax provision. Its net income went up by 50.6 per cent to € 1,577 million from € 1,047 million in the previous year. Tax provision declined to €273 million from €660 million. However, its profit before tax increased only by 8.4 per cent to €1,849 million from €1,704 million. Its net sales moved up 11.1 per cent to €14,798 million ($16,167 million) from €13,317 million.
The sales of prescription medicines increased by 10.9 per cent to €11,201 million from €10,101 million in the previous year and contributed 76 per cent to its total sales. The sales of consumer health care and animal health care went up by 5.3 per cent and 20.6 per cent to €1,513 million and $1,363 million. Its sales in Europe increased only by 1.1 per cent to €4,127 million from €4,081 million. Its German sales declined slightly to €902 million from €912 million. The company's sales in Americas increased sharply by 16.6 per cent to €6923 million from €5,937 million. Similarly, its sales in Asia/Australia/Africa moved up by 13.6 per cent to €3,748 million from €3,299 million.
The sales of Spiriva increased by 9.8 per cent to €3,533 million and that of Pradaxa went up by 7.4 per cent to €1,287 million. Micardis sales declined by 12.1 per cent to €965 million and sales of Trajenta/Jentadueto increased sharply by 42.9 per cent to €909 million. Currently, 47,500 employees are working worldwide. Its R&D expenditure increased to €3,004 million from €2,654 million in the previous year. This worked out to 20.3 per cent of net sales.
The company sold its generics business Roxane in US to focus on core business. It announced that it is entering exclusive negotiations with Sanofi with regard to the strategic swap of its OTC medicines business for Sanofi's animal health business.
The company is planning to invest € 11 billion in the international research and development of human pharmaceuticals over the next five years. Of this, five billion euros will go to pre-clinical research and 1.5 billion euros to collaborations with external partners. Currently, its research teams are working on a total of over 100 different projects.
Boehringer is also planning to invest half a billion euros in the expansion of its biopharmaceutical product facilities. So far it has produced 25 biopharmaceutical medicines worldwide. It is setting up a new large-scale biopharmaceutical production facility in Vienna, Austria and expanding production of pocket-sized inhaler Respimat for its respiratory medicines portfolio at its Ingelheim and Dortmund facilities in Germany.