Six months after inaugurating its new French animal health headquarters in the heart of the Lyon-Gerland Biodistrict, Boehringer Ingelheim has confirmed its allegiance to the region by announcing that it is about to invest a further EUR65 million (US$80.2 million) in the metropolitan area.
The German group has laid the first stone of a 5,700 square meter building at its Lyon Porte-des-Alpes (LPA) site. Known as F2IVE (Formulation and Filling of Inactivated Vaccines Extension), this major project will comprise a three-story building - including 1,000 square meters of clean room space – mainly for formulating and distributing avian vaccines.
“As poultry consumption continues to rise around the world, there is an increasing demand for avian vaccines. This meant that our LPA production site in Saint-Priest was going to reach a saturation point by 2020. We had to do some forward planning and find additional production capacity,” explained Erick Lelouche, President of Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health France.
The new building, which has an environmentally friendly design, will house two formulation lines, a multi-format bottle distribution line and a bag distribution area.
42 new jobs to be created at the new site
Earthworks for the new high-tech building began in March 2018 with the first batches expected in spring 2020 for a range of avian vaccines destined for the world market, with the exception of the US.
Fifteen months after the acquisition of Merial (a Sanofi company) in January 2017, this new investment will lead to the creation of 42 new jobs, primarily consisting of qualified operations staff (flow and maintenance managers, production technicians).
“An investment such as this confirms the commitment made by Boehringer Ingelheim at the time of the acquisition to put France, and Lyon in particular, at the heart of its growth strategy in the animal health market,” Erick Lelouche shares.
Over the past 22 years, more than EUR350 million (US$432 million) have been invested in the LPA site. This new investment will eventually result in a threefold increase in the site’s inactivated vaccine production capacity.
