AZ sets up virtual neuroscience unit in Cambridge
Cambridge UK has been handpicked along with Boston in the US to spearhead AstraZeneca’s new global R & D strategy.
At the same time as announcing 7,300 job cuts in a worldwide restructuring, AZ revealed that it is creating a new virtual neuroscience innovative medicines unit – iMed – in the two centres.AZ said its iMed would comprise a small team of around 40 to 50 AstraZeneca scientists conducting discovery and development externally through a network of some of the most innovative partners in academia and industry globally.
“The team will be based in major neuroscience hubs – Boston US and Cambridge UK – and work closely with innovative partners such as the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden,” the company disclosed.
Martin Mackay, president of Research & Development for the company said: “We”ve made an active choice to stay in neuroscience though we will work very differently to share cost cost, risk and reward with partners in this especially challenging but important field of medical research.
“The creation of a virtual neuroscience iMed will make us more agile scientifically and financially. We will be able to collaborate flexibly with the best scientific expertise, wherever it exists in the world.”
The R & D restructuring alone will impact 2,200 jobs globally but Business Weekly understands that AZ subsidiary MedImmune – based at Granta Park – could escape the carnage. Granta would seem to be in the frame for the new neuroscience hothouse, though this has yet to be confirmed by AZ.
AZ CEO David Brennan said the overall restructuring programme was expected to deliver an estimated $1.6bn in annual benefits by the end of 2014 set against an initial one-off cost of $2.1bn.
