AstraZeneca Inaugurates US$15 Million Facility in India

AstraZeneca (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) inaugurated a new Process and Development (PR&D) laboratory next to its R&D centre in Bangalore, India.

The PR&D facility, built at a cost of US$15 million, covers 8,000 square meters on a 14,200 square meter plot and can accommodate up to 75 highly-qualified process scientists, supported by office and engineering staff. This is AstraZeneca's fourth PR&D facility and the only one outside of Europe. The company has two PR&D facilities in the UK and one in Sweden.

Mr. Brennan said, "I am delighted and privileged to inaugurate this PR&D facility to further demonstrate AstraZeneca's commitment to our operations in India and to our team of researchers and scientists here who are dedicated to the discovery of novel therapies for developing world diseases. Facilities of this kind will leverage India's strengths in process chemistry.”

This facility will strengthen the existing global PR&D programs as well as provide support to the existing drug discovery program at Bangalore, engaged in finding a cure for tuberculosis (TB), a disease prevalent in the developing world and making a re-appearance in developed countries.

Dr. Sudhir Nambiar, director, PR&D, AstraZeneca India, said, "This is an exciting challenge for the skilled and dedicated Indian chemists who have already proved themselves in the generic area. We plan to recruit additional scientists from the organic, analytical and process engineering disciplines from universities directly or with varying levels of local/overseas industrial experience.”

A focus area of this facility will be the new chemical entities (NCEs). The PR&D scientists typically work with compounds created by medicinal chemists to ensure that they are safe and efficient for the manufacturing related stages of drug development as well as toxicological studies and clinical trials. The co-location at Bangalore of Discovery and PR&D scientists will help AstraZeneca to maximize scientific interactions and enable shared use of the PR&D infrastructure.

PR&D scientists design the route and processes that enable the manufacture of the "active ingredient” (the compound that affects the disease). There are seven teams within PR&D. These are analytical chemistry, development manufacture, process chemistry, process engineering, projects management, business development, and gmp (good manufacturing practice) quality assurance.

With inputs from R&D about the structure of the candidate drug, the PR&D scientists will design a safe, economical, and environmentally friendly way of producing a quality active ingredient in bulk. A well-knit team will be involved right from the chemical analysis process to the business development stage.

AstraZeneca India has made a major commitment to develop a cure for the deadly disease tuberculosis (TB) that infects and kills millions of people each year mostly in the developing economies. The scientists work at the center, in close collaboration with AstraZeneca's infection research centre in Boston, Massachusetts, US, and with external academic leaders in the field. Its programs include the first major effort in 40 years to find new cures for TB and so far, AstraZeneca has invested more than $40 million in this facility.


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