Boehringer Ingelheim enters into collaboration with Roche to partner for inflammatory bowel diseases

Ingelheim, Germany – 19 December, 2017 - Boehringer Ingelheim today announced a collaborative agreement with Roche, focusing on the discovery and development of orally available novel Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) oligonucleotides for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). Together, Boehringer Ingelheim and Roche will leverage complementary expertise and innovative LNA technology to bring novel treatment approaches to IBD patients.     
                 
“The opportunity to work closely with the experts at Roche to discover and develop oral, gut targeted LNAs for the treatment of unmet medical needs in patients suffering from IBDs is extremely motivating,” said Jay Fine, Global Head of Immunology & Respiratory Diseases Research at Boehringer Ingelheim. “By combining our deep knowledge of gut inflammatory diseases and immunology with Roche’s expertise in the design, development and use of LNA technology, we believe we can accelerate the delivery of novel treatments for IBD patients.”

The development of new therapies for diseases of the immune system is a key priority for Boehringer Ingelheim. Through partnership, innovation and robust Immunology research and development, Boehringer Ingelheim’s pipeline aims to deliver promising new compounds with the potential to transform the treatment of immune-mediated diseases.

Under the agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim and Roche will collaborate on drug discovery and development, share clinical development costs and responsibility for the commercialization of potential products.

Jay Fine added, “Everyone working in Boehringer Ingelheim’s therapeutic area of Immunology is encouraged by the scientific discovery and medical advancements that will help underserved patients with immunological diseases. We have made substantial progress in 2017, and look forward to building upon our partnership with Roche in the year ahead.” 

About Boehringer Ingelheim 
Innovative medicines for people and animals have for more than 130 years been what the research-driven pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim stands for. Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s top 20 companies and to this day remains family-owned. Day by day, some 50,000 employees create value through innovation for the three business areas human pharmaceuticals, animal health and biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing. In 2016, Boehringer Ingelheim achieved net sales of around 15.9 billion euros. With more than three billion euros, R&D expenditure corresponds to 19.6 per cent of net sales.

Social responsibility comes naturally to Boehringer Ingelheim. That is why the company is involved in social projects such as the “Making More Health” initiative. Boehringer Ingelheim also actively promotes workforce diversity and benefits from its employees’ different experiences and skills. Furthermore, the focus is on environmental protection and sustainability in everything the company does.

More information about Boehringer Ingelheim can be found on www.boehringer-ingelheim.com or in our annual report: http://annualreport.boehringer-ingelheim.com.