As of: February 19, 2024, 9:46 a.m
By: Andreas Baar
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A city next to the city: The Penzberg Roche factory in Nonnenwald, including the northern extension (foreground), has an impressive total area of 590,000 square meters.
© Roche
Penzberg - The Roche Group can look back on a good 2023 financial year.
The company is investing 600 million euros in its plant in Penzberg.
When the Swiss Roche Group celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Oberland site in Penzberg in 2022, the company naturally heard a lot of praise from local politicians for its economic commitment to the region.
Over the past five decades, the factory has become the largest employer in the region, and a large number of suppliers and craftsmen also benefit from orders.
The high-tech location has almost 7,800 employees (from 80 nations, by the way).
Ascending trend.
There are also 309 trainees and dual students.
When the 8,000 mark will be cracked is only a matter of time.
Roche employees not only commute from the Weilheim-Schongau district, but also from the Tölzer, Miesbacher, Landsberger, Starnberger and Garmisch areas to the Nonnenwald.
Shuttle buses run daily from Munich to Penzberg.
At the factory, Roche combines research, development and production in one place - which is particularly important in its global portfolio of locations.
Important work in the Penzberg nuns' forest
In general, Roche in Germany, including its plant in Penzberg, can look back on a successful 2023 financial year: sales of almost 8.3 billion euros were achieved, an increase of 2.4 percent compared to the previous year.
Claudia Fleischer, Managing Director of Roche Diagnositics, spoke with satisfaction of a “very strong development” at a press conference in Penzberg.
With the German locations in Mannheim, Penzberg, Grenzach-Wyhlen and Ludwigsburg, they were able to make a “very positive contribution” to the group.
Diagnostics managing director Claudia Fleischer and plant manager Paul Wiggermann emphasize the group's commitment to the location.
© Andreas Baar
This is good because the German locations face tough competition internally with other branches worldwide.
Last year alone, Roche said it implemented or started investment projects worth more than 1.4 billion euros in Germany.
According to Fleischer, around 1 billion euros are available for the next three years.
A further 640 million euros went into expanding and maintaining the value of the German locations in 2023.
The Penzberg factory always got a big piece of the cake.
In the last ten years, 2.7 billion euros have been invested, 350 million euros in 2023 alone. The group speaks of “sustainable growth”.
Work is currently underway on the new LEAP diagnostics research building.
Around 250 million euros are being invested in the building.
Almost 24,000 square meters of usable space is divided into a laboratory and an office section.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, up to 800 researchers, currently spread across 28 buildings across the Penzberg campus and in Munich, are expected to move in.
Roche's largest investment in the Oberland
The biggest project, however, is the new diagnostics production center.
The investment is around 600 million euros.
A sum that has never been invested in an individual project at the factory.
The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for May this year and the foundation stone is expected to be laid in November.
Completion and commissioning of the center is scheduled for the end of 2027.
With the new building, the group is killing two birds with one stone: the production capacity of the diagnostic division will be increased.
This is immensely important at the location.
Substances from Penzberg are contained in almost all Roche diagnostic tests that are run worldwide.
In addition, buildings that are over 50 years old can be dismantled and employees in the area, who currently work in around 30 buildings, can be concentrated.
Roche is investing 600 million euros in the new diagnostics production center in Penzberg.
© Roche
The new biomass heating plant for burning residual forest wood is downright modest at around 22 million euros.
The groundbreaking is scheduled for April.
The residual wood is delivered from forests within a 100 kilometer radius, says plant manager Paul Wiggermann.
The operation saved 7,800 tons of CO2 annually.
And a gene therapy development center will be inaugurated in March.
An existing building shell was newly expanded for around 90 million euros.
In Penzberg they have a major locational advantage at Roche: the Upper Bavarians can argue for free space within the group thanks to the northern expansion of the factory site.
“We want to offer Penzberg as part of a global network,” explains plant manager Wiggermann.
Including the new area, which is around 13 hectares in size, the factory site now has an impressive total area of 590,000 square meters.
Criticism of the construction of the new diagnostics production center in Penzberg
But the expansion was not without controversy among the population and local politics.
Not all city councilors approved the development plan in December 2022.
In addition to the consumption of land and the felling of trees, critics fear an increase in traffic and even more pressure on the already tense real estate market around Penzberg.
The Roche management team was satisfied with the yes to the expansion.
The company had the opportunity to “sustainably modernize and further develop our plant over the next ten to 15 years,” the plant manager was quoted as saying at the time.
Roche does not want to say at this point whether large sums of the 1 billion euros available for investments in Germany over the next three years will flow into the Penzberg plant.
The “potential” in the plant is currently being examined, said manager Fleischer.
Nothing is official, but the Diagnostic managing director assumes that money will then go into “expanding and modernizing” the plant.
There is already a strategic plan for the new northern areas.
According to Fleischer, these are more suitable for diagnostics because the pharmaceutical division is already concentrated in the south of the area.
Roche is calling on politicians in the Oberland to create good conditions for investments
But despite Roche's willingness to invest, Fleischer warns that corporate money is "not a sure-fire success."
Internal competition is increasing.
At Roche, politicians are also held responsible: “Investment and innovation-friendly conditions are needed,” demands the top manager.