The British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has chosen Barcelona to build a large R&D hub of reference in Europe that will serve to develop new therapies, in which it could invest up to 800 million euros, according to industry sources, and create a thousand new jobs.
The new European hub will be presented on Wednesday in Barcelona, ??in an event attended by the president of the Generalitat and president of Biocat, Pere Aragonès; the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, and the president of the company in Spain, Rick Suárez. The global president of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, met yesterday with the vice-president and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, to explain the details.
The new European hub will become AstraZeneca’s greatest effort in Spain: yesterday the Ministry of Economic Affairs estimated that the company will create 1,000 jobs. The hub culminates the efforts of the Generalitat to grow in the biomedical sector. As President Aragonès recently recalled at the presentation of the Biocat report, “Catalonia has made a commitment for many years to base its research system around the life and health of people.” According to data from the Generalitat, Catalonia ranks sixth in Europe in the development of clinical trials, with more than 1,200 active, 50% of them in oncology, one of the areas in which AstraZeneca is strongest.
Health sources explained that the new Barcelona hub is a “posthumous legacy” of Josep Baselga, one of the world’s leading breast cancer oncologists, who in the final years of his career was executive vice president of research at AstraZeneca. The firm already had a research program with the name of the oncologist in collaboration with the Institut d’Oncologia de la Vall d’Hebron (VHIO).
Yesterday Soriot transferred to Calviño the investment plans in Spain until 2025, in which the country is positioned as the global engine of growth in R&D. In 2021 the company invested more than 93 million euros in innovative projects, which last year multiplied and placed the investment at close to 400 million euros.
AstraZeneca defended yesterday before Calviño the public-private collaboration in the development of new medicines and estimated that 300 clinical trials were carried out in Spain last year, in which more than 4,500 patients participated.
Of the investments last year in Spain, 48 million correspond to RD. Part of all the effort that is made in the country corresponds to its subsidiary Alexion, the American company acquired in 2021 for more than 33,000 million euros.
In Spain it has been growing in recent years. Last year it increased its workforce by 20% and reached 1,300 employees. The figure will increase considerably because the 1,000 new hires will take place in just four years.
Calviño highlighted that AstraZeneca’s commitment “reflects the determined drive that is being given to the fields of RD, health and science” and recalled that “Spain already leads the world in clinical trials and cutting-edge therapies”. The company currently has 179 clinical development programs, of which 15 are in the most advanced phases of study. It has also dedicated 5.5 million euros in new offices and the Innovation Hub in Madrid.
