HOECHST BUILDS US NEURO CENTER

Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceuticals, the US pharmaceutical arm of the German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst, is building a center for molecular neurobiology at its base in Somerville, New Jersey, at a cost of around $18 million.

Hoechst-Roussel had been responsible for all the German group's activities in the area of diseases of the central nervous system as part of a global division of labor since 1989. For some time, the German group has tried to set up human insulin production in Germany but legal and bureaucratic problems have impeded progress so far.

Hoechst earlier acquired a license for the production of recombinant human insulin from the US biotechnology company, Immunex, and the plan was to set up an experimental plant for trial production near Frankfurt. Permission has still not been obtained from the German authorities, while competitor companies in Denmark and America have been producing recombinant human insulin for many years now. Hoechst and Immunex have developed the product jointly in the USA.