Boehringer Ingelheim has opened a 鈧60m ($66.8m) research building in Vienna, Austria, as the company looks to double down in the oncology therapeutics space.

The building is named after Angelika Amon, a Viennese pioneer in cell biology who died in 2020 following a battle with ovarian cancer. Boehringer Ingelheim said the scientist 鈥渨as closely connected鈥 to the company.

The Angelika Amon research building will house 150 employees across 11 floors, according to a 25 September press release.

The building has architectural additions, which are part of a drive by the company to become carbon-neutral by 2030. Photovoltaic arrays on the roof and the fa莽ade will save 45 tons of carbon dioxide a year while electrochromic glass darkens automatically with sunlight and reduces cooling requirements by 30%.

Boehringer Ingelheim said the laboratories would allow scientists to 鈥渁chieve their goal to develop innovative therapies for people living with cancer鈥, though it did not specify which cancer indications would be researched.

Boehringer Ingelheim did not immediately respond to Pharmaceutical Technology for comment on which oncology indications would be initially targeted or how the departmental makeup of the workforce would look.

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The building鈥檚 development is part of a five-year $7.8bn investment plan by Boehringer Ingelheim. As part of the investment, the company opened a biomass power plant in Ingelheim, Germany, in January this year, and completed the Biologicals Development Centre in Biberach last year. A chemical innovation plant, also in Ingelheim, is currently under construction, with an opening slated in 2026.

Boehringer Ingelheim鈥檚 innovation unit head Paola Casarosa said: 鈥淥ur goal is to create more health for humans and animals. Especially in the field of oncology, there is still a massive unmet medical need. We are working with great enthusiasm to make cancer a treatable disease.”

The company鈥檚 global head of cancer research Norbert Kraut added that 鈥渁round one-third of the new products at Boehringer Ingelheim will come from oncology鈥 in the future.

In its 2023 full-year earnings release in April this year, the company said it had plans to start ten new Phase II and Phase III trials in the next 12-18 months. This would support a target of 25 treatments it鈥檚 aiming to bring to market by 2030.

Boehringer Ingelheim acquired Nerio Therapeutics for $1.3bn in July as part of its cancer push, gaining a preclinical immune checkpoint inhibitor programme that it said would become a 鈥渒ey centrepiece鈥 of its immuno-oncology portfolio.