Boehringer Ingelheim again grows faster than pharma market, with 2009 net sales up nearly 10%

Germany's largest independent drug major, Boehringer Ingelheim, continued to grow in 2009, increasing its net sales by 9.7% to 12.7 billion ($17.16 billion). Even without taking into account positive currency effects, growth was once again above the average growth for the worldwide pharmaceutical market, at 6.7%, meaning that, for the tenth consecutive time, the firm grew faster than the pharmaceutical market and in 2009 and was the fastest growing company of the world's 15 largest drugmakers. Operating income, comparable to EBIT, rose to 2.2 billion euros, despite higher investments planned for research and development.

Speaking at the company's annual general meeting this week, Andreas Barner, chairman of the board of managing directors and responsible for the corporate board division Research & Development and Medicine, expressed his satisfaction with the 2009 business year: "In view of the difficult economic environment, we believe that the success of 2009 confirms that our entrepreneurial approach was right. The success of our innovative medicines for patients and our promising research pipeline give us cause to be optimistic about the future," he stated.

In 2009, the 125th year in the company's history, expenditure for R&D of new medicines and therapies again increased by more than 100 million euros to 2.2 billion euros. The company thus directly reinvested 21% of net sales from the prescription drugs business in research, it noted.