The pharmaceutical company Roche is consolidating its research in Basel. 40 previously scattered locations will be concentrated in four new buildings by Herzog & de Meuron, which will be located next to the two office towers. One of these is a 114-meter high-rise.
The new heart of Roche beats in the four research buildings at the headquarters on Grenzacherstrasse. They cost 1.2 billion Swiss francs – the group’s largest single investment in recent years. It is a commitment to Switzerland as a location: at just under 3.5 billion Swiss francs a year, around a third of its research expenditure is incurred here, most of it in Basel.
The gathering of 1,800 researchers in the new center is intended to facilitate collaboration. This is also the aim of the airy design of the rooms with glass, meeting areas and open staircases.
Legend:
Research with a hotel ambience – open spaces should facilitate collaboration.
SRF/Lisa Garberson
Next to the two office towers – the tallest one is the tallest building in Switzerland at 205 metres – the four new buildings are hardly noticeable, despite being up to 114 metres high. The actual new laboratories are set up in “Building 6” and “Building 7” with 16 and 26 floors respectively.
Legend:
The footbridge between Building 6 and Building 7 offers views over the Rhine and the city towards the Jura hills.
SRF/Lisa Garberson
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 smallest, “Building 4”, with four floors, has an auditorium for 200 people, while “Building 5” primarily houses offices.
Here the group fills its pipeline
Roche calls its research center with its four new buildings “pRED” (Pharma Research and Early Development). These laboratories are intended to develop what will later become new “blockbusters,” highly profitable products with sales of over a billion.
“In Basel, research is being carried out into therapies for serious diseases for which there is still no real solution on the market,” says site manager Jürg Erismann. Research areas include oncology, ophthalmology, neuroscience, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
Legend:
View into one of the laboratories in the new research building.
SRF/Lisa Garberson
The fate of the corporation depends on the success of the minds in these new buildings. The corporation is not only one of the most important employers and taxpayers in Basel – alongside Novartis – but is also relevant nationwide, with 15,000 employees.
Here we find the research framework we need for our success.
The 1.2 billion investment in the new research center is a clear commitment to Basel and Switzerland, says Erismann. “Here we find the research framework that we need for our success.” The Federal Council was also represented at the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday, with Guy Parmelin, the head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER).
Legend:
The Roche Campus in Basel is surrounded by residential areas, the motorway and the Rhine – so new buildings do not grow in width, but in height.
Keystone/Georgios Kefalas
According to Erismann, the construction of the research center with flexible laboratories was carried out on time and within budget, despite interruptions during Corona. The new buildings are cooled with groundwater and partly heated with waste heat from production.
Legend:
The four new research buildings are arranged in a staircase-like manner west of the second Roche Tower, on the side of Grenzacherstrasse facing away from the Rhine.
Keystone/Gaetan Bally
Roche has been redesigning its campus in Kleinbasel for 15 years, investing a total of 3.6 billion Swiss francs in the process, plus one billion in nearby Kaiseraugst AG.
New buildings displace historic high-rise
The two towers are the most striking signal for the renewal of the company, which was founded in 1896, and the end is not yet in sight with the research center – a third tower is also planned. The laboratory buildings along the banks of the Rhine are to be demolished, as is the green high-rise from the 1950s that has been a defining feature for decades. Once a sign of progress, it is hardly seen next to the new white towers.
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