Biotop-report 2013

14

BioTOPics 46 | September 2013 

BioTOP-Report

Pharma

The German Capital Region: 

Highly Attractive for the Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is an important economic factor and job motor in the German capital region. 

According to a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research

1

 commissioned by the Association of 

Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa), the number of people employed in the industry in Berlin 

grew since 2009, in contrast to the national trend. Whereas jobs in the pharmaceuticals sector declined by 

2.6 % in Germany as a whole, in Berlin the number of employees grew by 1.5 % to 9,589.

One in eleven employees in the German pharmaceutical industry 

works in Berlin. With sales worth € 5.6 billion, Bayer, Berlin Che-

mie, Pfizer, Sanofi and the more than 20 other pharmaceutical 

manufacturers form the industry in the German capital with the 

highest revenues. With 17 % of Berlin’s total industrial produc-

tion, pharmaceutical companies come in first position, ahead of 

electrical engineering and mechanical engineering.

Berlin-Brandenburg is a highly attractive location for pharma-

ceutical companies. International companies in the industry like 

Takeda, which recently arrived in Berlin, are not just attracted by 

Berlin as the German capital. The many research facilities, hos-

pitals and biomedical companies in the region provide pharma-

ceutical companies with an infrastructure that will become in-

creasingly important to them in future. The industry faces major 

challenges: stricter approval regulations for new active substanc-

es, declining prices, expiring patents and mounting competition 

from generics manufacturers present the need for new business 

strategies. The core terms often raised in this context are: “per-

sonalised medicine” and “networks”.

1    Kirchhoff, Jasmina, Die Pharma-Industrie in Berlin: Ergebnisse der Mitgliederbefragung des Verbandes forschender Pharma-Unternehmen (vfa) 

„Wirtschaftsdaten 2012“. www.pharmastandort.de

Dr. Norbert Gerbsch

Deputy Director General of the 

German Pharmaceutical Industry Association 

(BPI)

A strong economic, medical and innovative basis and an excellent research landscape are important characteristics of a Health 

Capital with special relevance for pharmaceutical companies. Berlin and Brandenburg offer all of those characteristics. It is therefore 

not surprising that the number of pharmaceutical companies is steadily increasing: The region provides an extremely attractive 

surrounding for an industry which relies on qualified personnel and needs to reinvent itself in the face of the challenges of the bio-

logical revolution, demographic change, budgetary pressures in health systems, and health benefit assessment. And: The German 

capital region is a center for decision makers. As the German Pharmaceutical Industry Association, we are located here in order to 

participate thoroughly in the discussions about healthcare reforms and to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the public as well as 

other partners for the health sector. 

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Get Old

Pfizer researches to develop the medicines

of today and tomorrow

We at Pfizer are committed to applying science and our global resources to improve 

health and well-being at every stage of life. We strive to provide access to safe, 

effective and affordable medicines and related health care services to the people 

who need them.

www.pfizer.de

PFI_AZ_A4_20130617.indd   1

17.06.13   14:28

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16

BioTOPics 46 | September 2013 

BioTOP-Report

 Pharma 

Personalised Medicine and Networks

Many pharmaceutical and biotech companies in Berlin-Branden-

burg are pursuing concepts in the field of personalised medicine 

and therefore present themselves as potential cooperation part-

ners. For example, Alacris Theranostics GmbH specialises in the 

development of new processes in personalised medicine for can-

cer patients, focusing in particular on the development of new 

approaches in diagnostics, therapy and drug stratification. Meta-

nomics Health, a BASF Group company, on the other hand, offers 

targeted and non-targeted metabolite profiling to healthcare cus-

tomers in industry and academia.

Alongside companies focussed on developing “companion diag-

nostics”, the region is home to many specialised service provid-

ers and subcontractors which concentrate on the early phases of 

pharmaceuticals development and are highly regarded interna-

tionally for their specialist know-how. Caprotech GmbH, whose 

Caprotecs Capture Compound Mass Spectrometry (CCMS) per-

mits the function-specific isolation and identification of proteins, 

serves as an example. The system offers both the identification 

of the mechanism of action of a molecule and determination of 

its interaction partners, which may be responsible for side effects.

Another biotech company, EPO GmbH, provides a unique and 

outstanding source for cancer research projects. They offer the 

right models for every preclinical development phase, from tar-

get identification and validation to translational research.

In many of the region’s academic institutions, research into a 

number of topics in personalised medicine is under way. The po-

tential is huge and diverse, which makes it all the more important 

that it has now been concentrated and highlighted by the estab-

lishment of two new beacons. The first is the Berlin Institute of 

Health (BIH) which brings together the patient-focused research 

expertise of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the basic 

research of the Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine 

(MDC) even more closely than before in a joint institution. The 

second is the Integrative Research Institute (IRI) for the Life Sci-

ences, which was founded in Berlin in early March 2013 and 

whose interdisciplinary work will extend from knowledge about 

life at the molecular level to complex organisms (see page 36).

Berlin-Brandenburg offers a broad portfolio of potential answers 

to the challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry, in particu-

lar with regards to the integration of different players from the 

science and biomedical services sectors in the early phases of 

development. The project OncoTrack is an impressive example.

An Outstanding Network for Personalised Therapies

OncoTrack is a consortium of more than 80 scientists that has 

launched one of Europe’s largest collaborative research projects 

between academia and industry to develop and assess novel ap-

proaches for the identification of new markers for colon cancer. 

The project brings together top scientists from European academic 

institutions offering a wide range of expertise, and partners them 

with pharmaceutical companies. Consortium members from the 

Berlin-Brandenburg area play a vital role in the project, with six 

partners from clinics (Charité), non-university research institutes 

(Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics), the pharmaceu-

tical industry (Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer) and 

SMEs (Alacris Theranostics, EPO Experimental Pharmacology & 

Oncology). The goal of OncoTrack is to improve our understand-

ing of the variable make-up of tumours and how it affects the 

way an individual patient responds to treatment. This project is 

one example how our understanding of the fundamental biology 

of colon cancer can be advanced and will open the door for per-

sonalised therapeutic management of cancer patients.

Jean-Luc Delay

Managing Director 

Takeda Pharma Vertrieb GmbH & Co. KG

As a global company, we want to be present in the German 

capital. Takeda is Japan's as well as Asia's largest pharma-

ceutical manufacturer, and Berlin offers several advantages 

to us: proximity to the governmental and regulatory bodies, 

to important industry associations such as the Association of 

Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (vfa), and to 

other pharmaceutical companies. From Berlin, we direct all 

activities for the German market. And: one of our two produc-

tion sites is also located in the Berlin region. The Takeda plant 

in Oranienburg is a state-of-the-art production facility for vari-

ous types of tablets and capsules.

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