BI sales up 10 percent

The parent company of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. increased worldwide sales 10 percent last year to $17 billion, which the company said was the fastest growth rate among the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Boehringer Ingelheim has its U.S. headquarters in Ridgefield, and with more than 2,500 employees here is one of the largest employers in Fairfield County. In the past year, the company has cut hundreds of sales jobs throughout the United States after generic drug companies began producing competitors to Flomax and two other drugs. On a net basis, however, Boehringer Ingelheim added more than 200 jobs to give it a worldwide work force of more than 41,500 people.

“We will offset the sales losses that we expect this year in the USA, due to the expiry of patent protection, by growing the existing portfolio and launching new products,” said Hubertus von Baumbach, a member of the board of managing directors, in a statement. “The health care system changes in Germany and the USA ”¦ will also have an important effect.”

A month earlier, Boehringer Ingelheim announced it is establishing a venture capital fund to invest in startup companies, including those working on stem cell research. The state of Connecticut is in the midst of investing some $100 million in stem-cell research at Yale University and the University of Connecticut; the latter institution is finishing construction on a $52 million stem-cell and genomics research lab in Farmington.

In late April, Boehringer Ingelheim unveiled the Science Quest mobile laboratory, a “high-tech classroom on wheels” that will make the rounds of state schools, in order to interest students in careers in science and technology.

Separately, Boehringer Ingelheim is paying the state of Wisconsin nearly $8 million to settle claims it defrauded the state”™s Medicaid program by inflating the wholesale prices of drugs, causing the state to pay more than it should have to pharmacists. Under the agreement with Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, Boehringer Ingelheim did not admit wrongdoing.