AstraZeneca Inaugurates State-of-the-Art Global Process R&D

AstraZeneca Inaugurates State-of-the-Art Global Process R&D lab in Bangalore

AstraZeneca today inaugurated a new state-of-the-art Process and Development
(PR&D) laboratory next to its R&D centre in Bangalore, India.

Mr. David Brennan, Chief Executive Officer AstraZeneca, along with Guests of
Honour, Mr P B Mahishi, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka, & Mr. Narayana
Murthy, Chairman & Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies, officially opened the
laboratory at the company's Hebbal campus in Bangalore.

The PR&D facility, built at a cost of $15 million, covers 8,000 square metres on
a 14,200 square metre 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 programmes as well as
provide support to the existing Drug Discovery programme 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 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 & 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.


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Note to News Editors:
About Process R&D:
PR&D scientists design the route and processes ("recipes") 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. This team possesses the expertise
to transfer the commercially viable and safe “recipe” to manufacturing. A
well-knit team will be involved right from the chemical analysis process to the
business development stage.

AstraZeneca India 
AstraZeneca India has made a major commitment to develop a cure for the deadly
disease TB that infects and kills millions of people each year mostly in the
developing economies. Over 90 scientists, recruited from leading research
institutions and universities, work at the Centre, in close collaboration with
AstraZeneca's infection research centre in Boston, Massachusetts, US, and with
external academic leaders in the field. Its programmes 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.