In the presence of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Bavaria's Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder, the pharmaceutical company Roche is laying the foundation stone for one of the most modern production centers for high-quality diagnostic materials in Europe on the campus of its biotechnology center in Penzberg. The company is investing more than 600 million euros for this - Roche's largest single investment in Germany.
In the future, more than 450 essential input materials for diagnostic tests for the care of patients will be produced in a highly automated and intelligent production facility in Upper Bavaria. With the new building, Roche is strengthening Germany as a production location, increasing the long-term security of supply for in-vitro diagnostics worldwide and strengthening the resilience of value chains in Europe.
The new production building for diagnostics in Penzberg will be one of the most modern of its kind in Europe. To this end, Roche consistently relies on the digitalization and automation of manufacturing processes for faster and more efficient production. Production is also to be made highly flexible using multipurpose equipment so that the production facilities can be used to manufacture different input materials as required.
Roche is consistently investing in its German sites. In the last five years (2019 to 2023), a total of more than three billion euros has been invested in the sites in Penzberg, Mannheim, Grenzach and Ludwigsburg, including around 1.3 billion Euros in the site in the Bavarian Oberland.
In 2023, around 29 billion diagnostic tests with Roche analysis systems were delivered to customers worldwide, containing a wide variety of input materials such as antibodies, enzymes and nucleotides. Around 80 percent of the required diagnostic reagents come from the Roche Campus in Penzberg. In future, the new Roche production center will manufacture around 450 different starting materials (out of a total of around 1,900) for a variety of diagnostic tests, which will enable rapid and reliable diagnosis in the fields of infectiology, neurology, cardiology, oncology and diabetes. F
rom 2028, around 200 employees in diagnostics production will work under the roof of the new building. Its construction should be completed by 2027, followed by a testing and qualification phase. Production is expected to start in 2028.
A total of around 7,730 employees (as at 12/31/2023) work at the site, including 309 trainees and students. With its proximity to Munich and the research institutes and universities located there, Roche Penzberg has ideal access to young scientists and specialists and benefits from close networking between academic research and the biotech industry.