Roche to invest Euro 500m in Germany

Roche is to plough Euro 500m into its four sites in Germany: Manheim, Penzberg, Grenzach and Kulmbach. The investment will focus on building projects and both Roche's pharmaceutical and diagnostic businesses will benefit.

Roche has committed annual investments of more than â"šÂ¬300m over the last five years in Germany, its second most important market after the US. The company's German workforce totals 10,700 divided among the four sites.

Roche Pharma's pharmaceutical turnover has doubled in the last five years in Germany because of the launch of new compounds and extensions of indications for products already on the market. In the first nine months of this year, Roche Germany's pharmaceutical sales increased 5% (8% excluding antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir)).

The company said this growth was achieved by strong performances of cancer drugs Avastin (bevacizumab), Herceptin (trastuzumab), MabThera (rituximab), Xeloda (capecitabine) and Tarceva (erlotinib). Within Roche Pharma Germany, oncology products make up almost 70% of total sales, whereas rheumatology, a relatively new therapeutic area for the company, accounts for 2.9% of total sales, anaemia drugs for 5.8%, infectiology 7.1%, transplantation 5.5% and other therapeutic areas 11.2%