Boehringer’s Innovation Strategy Does Not Avoid Areas With Heavy Competition

04 Sep 2023

Boehringer Ingelheim's head of innovation Michel Pairet tells Scrip that while unmet medical need is the pharma’s R&D priority, its main focus is bringing breakthrough therapy potential to patients, and it is taking aim at competitive spaces like metabolic health and cancer.

Boehringer Ingelheim headquarters in Ingelheim, Germany — BI's R&D strategy centers on novel targets and breakthrough therapies for unmet needs • Source: Boehringer Ingelheim (dieth+schröder-fotografie)

Like many of its large pharma peers, Boehringer Ingelheim likes to talk about its lofty research and development goals and sourcing external innovation to stay on the cutting edge of therapeutic modalities, target discovery and validation, and ways to hit those targets. The German firm sets high standards for best- and/or first-in-class pipeline assets and breakthrough therapy designations.

But as a privately held and family-owned pharmaceutical company, BI has advantages over its peers in terms of being able...