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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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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.