AstraZeneca focuses on Spain with €800 million R&D centre in Barcelona

BRITISH-SWEDISH pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will build an €800 million Research and Development centre in Spain.

The centre, which according to official reports will be located in Barcelona, is expected to create 1,000 new jobs over the next five years.  The new hub will coordinate international projects centring on oncology as well as cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, respiratory and rare diseases, plus vaccines and immunotherapies.

“Spanish R&D is first class,” said AstraZeneca’s global CEO Pascal Soriot when he met Nadia Calviño, Spain’s vice-president and Minister for Economic Affairs earlier this month.

“We are committed to working with the government to harness the potential of innovative medicines and  drive long-term economic growth while investing  in environments that are committed to innovation and development,” he added.

Soriot also highlighted the importance of public-private collaboration in developing new medicines, citing the 300 clinical trials which were carried out in Spain in 2022 with the collaboration of more than 4,500 patients.

AstraZeneca invested more than €93 million in different projects in 2021, of which €48 million were assigned to R&D.

By last year, the company’s investment in Spain had increased to €400 million, together with a 20 per cent increase in personnel, bringing a total of 1,300 employees.

AstraZeneca was one of the first pharmaceutical companies to create a Covid-19 vaccine although over the last year this was not used in Spain, which has been administering Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Messenger RNA vaccines.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram