AstraZeneca will inaugurate its expanded Global Medicines Development (GMD) unit in Bengaluru on Wednesday, a development that comes four years after the biopharmaceutical company had shut its research and development site here.

The GMD unit expansion is the first from a five-year $90 million commitment made earlier this year by the parent company. The expanded site is one of nine such global sites that supports designing and conduct of clinical trials, monitoring of safety and efficacy and other regulatory management required during a product’s lifecycle.

The centre will support not just India, but work done globally by the AZ family, Elisabeth Björk, AZ's Vice-President, GMD Unit Head (Cardiovascular and Metabolic Renal Diseases) told BusinessLine , a day before the formal inauguration of the centre. The Bengaluru site will support 51 of AZ's mature brands used by 70 million patients globally, she added. The development comes even as AZ clocks 40 years in India.

Responding to a query on the closure of AZ's research site, followed up years on by the expansion of the GMD site, she said, the two developments were driven by different realities. The shutdown had to do with the consolidation in the company's pharmaceutical activities where the focus was cardiovascular, oncology and respiratory segments and done out of Sweden, the UK and the US. But the new centre was on the development side, she said, which included the design and conduct of clinical trials, other regulatory sciences and support for 51 mature brands. Veena Rajan, AZ India's GMD Site Lead (Bangalore) added the centre had grown from five specialists in 2016 to 60 in 2017 and will have 100 by the year-end.

She said a safety or efficacy question on an AZ product generated from Africa, Japan, Kenya or the US could be handled by the Bengaluru site.

While other multinationals also have centres that do similar work located in India, she said AZ was different in that provided “end to end” support for a product.

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