Abstract
Boehringer Ingelheim and its sister company, Dr Karl Thomae, are combined to form Germany's leading specialist pharmaceutical company, with 96% of its R&D expenditure devoted to pharmaceutical research. The company occupies 15th position in the world in terms of its R&D portfolio, with fifty-one in-house and eighteen licensed-in products. The company's research interests are unique, since it has only three major research projects, which each yield fifteen to twenty patent applications per year. This article builds up a profile of the company over the past five years and indicates the research areas and inventors of particular importance.