Roche opens new CHF1.2-billion R&D centre in Basel

View of one of the new Roche laboratories in Basel, September 10, 2024. Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

The pharmaceutical company Roche has opened a new research and development centre in Basel in northwest Switzerland. The firm has invested CHF1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) in the buildings designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron.

On Tuesday Roche announced the inauguration of its new “Pharma Research and Early Development Centre” at its global headquarters in Basel. The R&D centre comprises four research buildings at a cost of CHF1.2 billion – the group’s largest single investment in recent years. The facility will house 1,800 researchers.

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Next to the two existing office towers in the centre of Basel – one is the tallest building in Switzerland at 205 metres – the four new buildings are hardly noticeable, despite being 114 metres high.

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These new high-rise buildings are each divided into three-story units, which, according to Roche, creates smaller “research biotopes” of around 140 researchers from different disciplines each.

The aim of the new facility is to develop new “blockbuster” drugs, highly profitable products with sales of over CHF1 billion.

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“In Basel, research is being carried out into therapies for serious diseases for which there is still no real solution on the market,” Roche manager Jürg Erismann told Swiss public radio, SRF. Research will focus on oncology, ophthalmology, neuroscience, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases.

Roche is a major employer and taxpayer in Basel – alongside Novartis – but also in other parts of Switzerland, totalling 15,000 staff.

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The CHF1.2 billion investment in the new research centre is a clear commitment to Basel and Switzerland, says Erismann. “Here we find the research framework that we need for our success,” he said.

Swiss Economics Minister Guy Parmelin also attended the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday.

According to Erismann, the construction of the research centre with flexible laboratories was carried out on time and within budget, despite interruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The new buildings are cooled with groundwater and partly heated with waste heat.

Roche has been redesigning its campus in the Kleinbasel district over the past 15 years, investing a total of CHF3.6 billion in the process, in addition to CHF1 billion in nearby Kaiseraugst, canton Aargau.

Further construction work is planned in Basel, including a third tower block. The laboratory buildings along the banks of the Rhine will also be demolished, as well as a high-rise building from the 1950s.

Adapted from German by DeepL/sb

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