CEO Shashank Deshpande emphasizes the financial independence and long-term strategy of the family business.
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Boehringer Ingelheim is a family-owned pharmaceutical company. The owners are descendants of the founder Albert Boehringer.
An IPO is not an issue for the family-owned pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim. “Our financial independence is our top priority,” said CEO Shashank Deshpande to “Manager Magazin”. He then told the German Press Agency in Mainz when asked: “Boehringer Ingelheim is not aiming for a stock exchange listing.” You want to continue to grow based on your own strengths, be and remain independent. “A sale or IPO is not planned.”
Boehringer is in competition with numerous listed competitors who have raised a lot of money through the capital market. A lot of money is needed for the often lengthy development of new active ingredients.
Boehringer invests billions in research
According to its own information, Boehringer Ingelheim invested almost 6.4 billion euros in research and development in 2025 alone, with sales of 27.8 billion euros. When asked by “Manager Magazin” why Boehringer Ingelheim foregoes the stock market as a route to fresh capital, Deshpande said: “We are not dependent on external investors or capital providers, we think in generations, not in quarters.”
The company's owners are still the descendants of company founder Albert Boehringer. His great-grandson Hubertus vom Baumbach was Deshpande's predecessor at the top of the board until the summer of 2025. He then moved to the head of the shareholders' committee, the representative body of the owner family, so to speak.
The family is at the top of a list of the 500 richest Germans published by “Manager Magazin” on Wednesday. There we are talking about assets of 66.7 billion euros. Deshpande told the magazine: “This is a hypothetical value that is intended to reflect what Boehringer Ingelheim would be worth if we were listed on the stock exchange. But we're not."
Trust in your own research
A stock exchange listing is associated with publication obligations; investors often focus on very short quarterly cycles. There is also a certain risk for listed companies of being taken over against their own will - this is particularly an issue in the pharmaceutical industry given the immense stock market values of American companies, for example.
Boehringer boss Deshpande told the dpa with regard to its own research and development: “We have the competitiveness and the pipeline to continue to be successful.” The most important therapeutic areas in human pharmaceuticals for Boehringer are cardiovascular diseases, kidney and metabolic diseases, cancer, obesity and liver diseases.
Only recently did the Ingelheim-based company announce that it would be getting back into research to contain the danger of pathogens that have become resistant to drugs, i.e. research into antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This includes the development of new antibiotics.

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