With cash flowing freely, Boehringer Ingelheim, says it may leverage product deals and targeted acquisitions to build the company's profits as it prepares for greater competition from generics.

 

“If we see the possibility in a specific case to expand our portfolio in a sensible way, whether it’s in very early drug development or as in the animal health example with market—leading products, we’ll certainly increase individual areas of the business through targeted acquisitions,” Boehringer chairman Andreas Barner told Bloomberg.

 

That willingness to make strategic purchases tracks closely with the company's plans to invest in biotechnology and start-up companies, a desire it's backing with $135 million in corporate venture cash through its new Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund.

 

Through a combination of new product launches and an animal health business strengthened by purchasing Pfizer's animal health division, Boehringer expects it will be able to maintain its 2009 net sales level of $16.8 billion in 2010, despite lower sales from some of its leading drugs, such as Flomax for benign prostatic hyperplasia, and Sifrol/Mirapex, a medicine for Parkinson’s disease and restless legs syndrome.

 

“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,” says Hubertus von Baumbach, a member of the company's board of managing directors.

 

The company said it plans to boost its research and development expenditures in 2010, topping the $2.9 billion it spent on R&D in 2009. Last year, its operating cash flow totaled about $3.2 billion.