AstraZeneca to close Avishkar R&D site in Bangalore

British drug maker AstraZeneca Plc announced plans to close its Avishkar research and development (R&D) site in Bangalore later this year. This move was attributed to its broader global business strategy to simplify and downsize R&D footprint.

In March 2013, Astratzeneca had said it intends to cut around 1,600 research jobs across the globe by 2015. The company, which employs nearly 1200 people in manufacturing & sales in India will however, continue its commercial & manufacturing operations as is.

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The Avishkar R&D facility was set up in 2003 with an investment of nearly USD 40 million, currently employees 168 scientists and another 35 assistants, all of whose jobs are at stake.

As a strategy change, the drug maker is now focussing its R&D efforts only on three core therapy areas – oncology, cardiovascular, metabolic & respiratory, inflammation and auto-immune. The Bangalore R&D facility focussed on drug development for neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis and malaria.

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Astrazeneca plans to either move the ongoing research work to the company’s Macclesfield site in UK or be transferred to third party operators. However, it will continue work on its lead tuberculosis molecule, AZD5847, which is in phase II program. 

While experts have pointed out that India’s tough regulatory environment could be the reason Astrazeneca chose to completely shut its operations.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw had tweeted, “AstraZeneca just announced shutting down its Research centre in Bangalore. The UPA government has made regulatory environment anti research.” However, the company says its decision is in no way related to any local issues or changes to the regulatory environment.

This move though is in line with other global pharma companies who are scaling down or restructuring R&D efforts, in an era of pressures due to major patent expirations and increased generic competition.

AstraZeneca too has faced continued profit pressures in recent years. This as the effects of patent expirations across many of its key products like Schizophrenia treatment Seroquel IR, heart-failure medication Atacand in many markets, and anti-cholesterol drug Crestor in Canada. Its heartburn drug Nexium will lose US patent protection in May this year.

The restructuring is expected to give fillip to R&D efforts also in biologic products, which have been given equal weightage as small-molecule drugs by the company now. Reason why Astrazeneca said going forward it will no longer carry out early stage research into neglected tropical diseases, TB and malaria.

However, the company will continue to provide expertise to help advance existing third-party neglected tropical diseases, malaria and TB research programmes for the benefit of patients.