The added capacity will allow the company to produce 44m units of the inhaler per year, and will create approximately 100 new jobs on the site where Boehringer manufactures the inhaler.
In July, the US FDA approved Striverdi Respimat (olodaterol) inhalation spray to treat patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), including chronic bronchitis and/or emphysema that are experiencing airflow obstruction.
Boehringer previously expanded capacity at the Dortmund facility in 2012, when it invested €85m to expand the plant and added another 100 jobs. That additional funding went to new cleanrooms and production equipment.
In 2010, the company invested another €70m to expand production capacity citing high demand for the inhaler.
“The Respimat is a success story – for Boehringer Ingelheim and for the patients,” said Wolfgang Baiker, member of the Board of Managing Directors at Boehringer Ingelheim responsible for Operations. “We want to continue this success story. The Respimat inhaler will also in future be the inhalation device for applying our respiratory medications.”
Boehringer Ingelheim acquired the plant when it bought microtechnology company STEAG microParts GmbH in September 2004 and integrated it into Boehringer. There are now more than 550 employees working at the Dortmund facility.
In addition to the €100m expansion, Boehringer Ingelheim is investing €72m at the company headquarters in Ingelheim, Germany, where the inhalers are filled with the relevant API and then distributed worldwide. In May 2013, the API site was hit with an FDA warning letter for particles and cGMP violations.