Astra Zeneca opens multi-million dollar research facility in India
Focus on new treatments for tuberculosis
AstraZeneca today opened a new multi-million dollar research facility in Bangalore, India, which will focus principally on finding new treatments for tuberculosis (TB), a disease which is diagnosed in about two million people every year in India and in more than eight million people worldwide, mostly in the developing world (WHO Report 2003). At the opening, Sir Tom McKillop, Chief Executive, AstraZeneca PLC, highlighted AstraZeneca's unique commitment to India, which combines TB research and manufacturing capabilities, along with a strong presence in the Indian market.
He said: "Together with researchers across our 11,000 scientist strong R&D organisation, AstraZeneca Discovery Bangalore has been set the challenge of finding the world's first new TB drug since 1964. AstraZeneca will make any TB medicines discovered in these laboratories available for clinical development and supply to the world's poorest countries at low prices, in partnership with governments, healthcare systems, international agencies and others. All countries must play their part in the treatment of TB and I hope that the G8 Ministers, who will meet this week, will agree an international step-change in the allocation of resources for the treatment of this devastating disease."
AstraZeneca previously announced an investment programme for the drug discovery centre in Bangalore, which included $10 million to create the new research laboratories. Now that the centre has been created, AstraZeneca is investing another $30 million over the next five years for laboratory equipment and operations costs. The discovery centre in Bangalore, with more than 100 scientists, works closely with AstraZeneca's global network of research and development (R&D) centres, especially the genomics and infection research centres in Boston, USA, and in Cheshire, UK.
"TB is a deadly disease, which robs our country of millions of lives each year," said Shri S. M. Krishna, Chief Minister, Karnataka. "We are thrilled that AstraZeneca has chosen to use their expertise in infection research to search for a treatment and possibly a cure for this devastating disease, and we are even more pleased with their commitment to invest in India, where we are dealing with this disease day-in and day-out."
The AstraZeneca research programme in Bangalore, which also involves collaborations with academia, is utilising the latest technologies in drug discovery and development to find new candidate drugs that are better than existing treatments, active with shorter duration of therapy, and active against latent disease and resistance organisms. Developments in molecular science have revolutionised anti-infective drug hunting, in particular the ability to analyse and investigate the entire genome, such as the pathogen Mycobacteriun tuberculosis, which causes TB. This has enabled scientists at AstraZeneca to initiate novel approaches to treatment. In the past, TB research has been limited, and its treatment has relied on use of drugs developed for other infections. The promise for the future is for specific selective therapies, which could be "tailor-made" to address the challenges of a potential TB epidemic in the twenty-first century.
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