Boehringer Ingelheim opens new facility in Ames

by | Apr 22, 2016 | News

by Ben Nuelle

A well-known animal vaccine innovation lab celebrates the grand opening of their new research facility in Ames.

Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica provides vaccines for livestock, horses and pets.

The company celebrated the grand opening of their newly designed Ames research facility Thursday.

I met with Dr. Mike Roof earlier this week. He is Executive Director of Research and Development at Boehringer Ingelheim.

?The building was designed with the spirit of collaboration and innovation so we have an open office environment. All of the conference rooms are glass and we have lots of meeting space. It?s designed to create interactions between scientists and foster creativity.?

Roof says their core philosophy is value through innonvation.

?Our staff is 100% committed to research and development. That?s all we do. So it is all about discovery and innovating. Most of the animal diseases and most of the things we work on are very complex problems and can only be solved in a team setting. We work in teams so we wanted this facility to sort of enhance and facilitate that further team collaboration.?

He says this is a world class facility.

?We have full capabilities for virology, microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, and limited ability to do some pathologic testing. It?s a BL2 laboratory and it?s set up for a flow for good containment for what we do and full functionality for all of our projects.

Governor Branstad also attended the grand opening celebration of their new facility Thursday in Ames.