Boehringer Ingelheim & Fresenius Kabi collaborate for HESylated pharmaceutical production

Boehringer Ingelheim RCV GmbH & Co has announced that through the coupling of Fresenius Kabi’s hydroxyethyl starch (HES) to a therapeutic protein, the capability to produce robust HESylated pharmaceuticals on an industrial scale level was successfully demonstrated. Fresenius Kabi provided Boehringer Ingelheim RCV with its HESylation Technology to manufacture HES conjugated to a therapeutic protein.

The HESylated pharmaceutical deriving from both, the laboratory and the industrial scale were well comparable with regard to quality and process yield. The amount of the HESylated pharmaceutical equalled 30,000 once weekly doses of an already approved long acting second generation product.

Upon this first successful collaboration, Boehringer Ingelheim RCV GmbH & Co KG and Fresenius Kabi Deutschland GmbH will actively evaluate further opportunities to extend the collaboration and to apply HESylation Technology, respectively.

HESylation Technology allows a targeted modification of drugs and their characteristics by site-specific coupling to HES molecules. HES-coupling enables the modification of key pharmacological parameters such as absorption, metabolization, half-life, water solubility and safety.

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals To Buy Some Wyeth Assets

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals announced Monday it has entered an agreement with Pfizer to acquire certain assets of Wyeth Pharmaceutical's Fort Dodge Animal Health business.

Boehringer, which has nearly 3,000 employees in Connecticut, is expected to acquire the Fort Dodge assets once the Pfizer-Wyeth merger is complete.

In addition to its branded pharmaceuticals business, Boehringer's divisions include generic drugs, chemicals, consumer products and animal health the last two of which are also based in Ridgefield.