To enable it to continue to meet steadily growing demand for its innovative new medicines, the Roche Group intends to expand its manufacturing capacity for biotechnology products. The company plans to construct a new biotech centre at the Group's Basel campus and an additional facility at the Penzberg site in Germany, a company release said.

The projects, representing capital expenditures of about 400 million Swiss francs each, will take three years to complete. The new facilities will initially be used to manufacture the active ingredients of the anti-cancer medicines Avastin and Herceptin, both of which belong to a group of therapeutic agents known as monoclonal antibodies. To operate the new Basel and Penzberg facilities, Roche will be creating roughly 150 new jobs at each site.

"This investment underscores our intention of ranking among the world's top biotechnology companies in every area, from research and development to production and marketing," says Roche chairman and CEO Franz B Humer. "Biopharmaceuticals have led to therapeutic breakthroughs in a number of disease areas, notably oncology. By expanding our manufacturing facilities, we are also taking steps to ensure that we can continue to supply these medicines to all patients who need them. Further more, these milestone projects are a clear expression of our ongoing commitment to our large and important sites in Basel and Penzberg," he added.

At Group headquarters in Basel an existing chemical production building will be torn down to make room for a new eight-storey biotech centre designed by the architectural firm of Herzog & de Meuron. In Penzberg, the largest biotechnology manufacturing site in Europe, existing capacity will be expanded by adding a new five-storey facility.

Apart from Basel and Penzberg, the Group has biopharmaceutical production facilities in Nutley (USA); at the Genentech sites in Vacaville (USA), Porriño (Spain) and South San Francisco (USA); and at the Chugai sites in Utsunomiya and Ukima (both in Japan).