Kicks off first part of $90 mn investment in India over 5 years
As AstraZeneca celebrates 40 years of operations in India, the Anglo-Swedish company announced the expansion of its Global Medicines Development (GMD) Centre in Bengaluru, India.
Speaking to Express Pharma, Elisabeth Björk, VP, Global Medicines Development Unit Head for Cardiovascular, Metabolic Renal Diseases, AstraZeneca, said, “The Bengaluru centre is one of AstraZeneca’s nine GMD centres across the world. The GMD Bangalore expansion is the first part of the recently announced $90 million investment in the country over five years. The centre will comprise of a highly-skilled, scientific workforce in the areas of regulatory science, clinical and patient safety, to manage the lifecycle of AstraZeneca’s global mature brands portfolio in oncology, respiratory and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.”
In contrast to the trend in the pharmaceutical industry to outsource parts of the drug discovery and development work to contract research organisations (CROs), Björk stressed that AstraZeneca is focusing on forging global collaboration to bring end-to-end drug development in-house, from discovery to late stage activities.
The GMD Bangalore will support 51 of AstraZeneca’s mature brands which are used by 70 million patients around the world. These brands are in AstraZeneca’s three areas of therapeutic focus: oncology, respiratory, and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
Speaking about the growth of the centre, Veena Rajan, GMD Site Lead Bangalore, AstraZeneca India said, “The growth of the centre from five specialists in 2016 to the current 70, is testament to the commitment to deliver growth here in India. We intend to reach 100 by the end of 2018.”
Commenting on the fact that Bengaluru has been a good place to find the research staff that AstraZeneca requires, she reiterated that talent understands the value of the opportunity to be part of global end-to-end drug development projects executed in the GMD centre.
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