In a video spoof online, a marketing guru gives viewers a peek at how Boehringer Ingelheim plans to generate word-of-mouth: parrots trained by buxom scientists to pronounce ”“ correctly ”“ the company”™s name.
A few more models and macaws may be needed in Ridgefield to generate some noise in Hartford.
As Gov. Dannel P. Malloy outlines a biosciences “research triangle” framed by Yale University in New Haven and University of Connecticut facilities in Farmington and Storrs, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. is promising reinvigorated growth, a year after a bestselling drug opened up to generic competition resulted in hundreds of job cuts.
As Connecticut works with Jackson Laboratory Inc. to build a $1 billion genomics research facility in Farmington, Boehringer Ingelheim has flown relatively low on the radar of late ”“ until recently when it revealed big job gains in the past year amid successful new drug trials now under way.
With the company”™s U.S. headquarters in Ridgefield more than 40 miles outside Malloy”™s industry triangle on the far western side of the state, it may be time for the governor to redraw his life sciences map to encompass a “research rhombus.”
Boehringer Ingelheim”™s presence has hardly been lost on Malloy ”“ last August he was on hand for a ceremonial groundbreaking on a $42.5 million addition to the company”™s local campus, where it will undertake varying research and safety studies. Boehringer Ingelheim followed that up last November with a second building that will cost $65 million. The company invested nearly $140 million more to build new facilities in Ohio and Iowa, while acquiring a 300,000-square-foot plant in California.
Underwriting it all was a 6 percent boost in Boehringer Ingelheim sales last year to $17.4 billion, with the company adding 1,800 employees without disclosing any additions in Ridgefield and Danbury where it has a large presence in the Matrix Corporate Center. Sales were boosted in part by the launch of Pradaxa, used to prevent the formation of blood clots, which produced worldwide sales of $832 million last year.
Boehringer Ingelheim said it increased research spending by 3 percent and now invests nearly a quarter of prescription drug net sales in research and development, above the industry average.
Boehringer Ingelheim is the largest privately held employer in Fairfield County with 2,600 employees. Its Germany-based parent says the Americas region is its most important market.
Entering May, Boehringer Ingelheim listed just over 80 open jobs in Ridgefield, more than a dozen of them scientists and similar fields requiring high levels of training and experience.
Boehringer Ingelheim”™s Ridgefield scientists and engineers churned out more than 50 patent applications last year ”“ by comparison, Yale fell just short of that mark. The University of Connecticut, meanwhile, produced less than half that number of life science patent applications.
The company is also innovating on how it approaches research ”“ in March it announced a $20,000 prize to solve a biological problem using a crowdsourcing platform from Kaggle Inc. to solicit ideas.
If Boehringer Ingelheim is finding new ways to get ideas in house, it is not having any problems getting the word out ”“ more than 300,000 people have viewed the viral video on YouTube in which British comedian Ray Cokes leads a tour of a mock Boehringer Ingelheim lab where parrots are bred to enunciate the company name.
“So my little mobile marketing manager, what have we learned today?” Cokes croons.
“Sauerkraut,” the bird responds.
