(Alliance News) - Bayer AG announced on Thursday investments worth around EUR2 billion to boost the German multi-national's pharmaceutical segment over the next three years.
The money will flow into "new technologies, automation, and digitalization," the company announced in Berlin on Thursday.
A lion's share of the investments is aimed at "enhanced capacities in biotechnology, further strengthening the company's cell and gene therapy production as well as in the expansion of its manufacturing site in Berkeley, USA," Bayer said in a statement.
The pharma giant has high hopes for the relatively new sector of biotechnology, which is expected to drive growth in the long term, and announced a collaboration with US firm Mammoth Biosciences at the beginning of the year to strengthen its cell and gene therapy division.
According to Bayer, Germany is to remain an important production site in the future, with more than EUR1.4 billion to be invested in technologies, new production facilities and digitisation at the pharmaceutical sites in Bergkamen, Berlin, Leverkusen, Weimar and Wuppertal, the company said at the beginning of March.
The commitments are part of a general works agreement concluded by the board of management and employee representatives.
In order to facilitate the investments, Bayer "is analysing in parallel which manufacturing activities might not be of strategic focus any longer."
A manufacturing site in Brazil, for example, is to be transferred to a new operator. In addition, parts of the infrastructure and service sector divisions in Bergkamen, Wuppertal and Berlin are to be outsourced to external partners.
source: dpa
Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.