Great partnerships with both business and the community

At the Pharmaceutical Achievement Awards conference on August 8 in Boston, we were recognised with a pair of awards for our partnerships with both business and the community.

Our collaboration with Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) was awarded the Business Development Deal of the Yearwhile AstraZeneca R&D Bangalore was honoured with the Corporate Community Partner Award, recognising a company’s high level of caring, local impact and corporate generosity.

A scientist at the AstraZeneca R&D Bangalore research site

Community partner
Our Research Centre of Excellence in Bangalore, India, is focused on the discovery of new treatments for tuberculosis (TB) and other diseases found in the developing world. More than 100 researchers work at the site and are poised to deliver possible new treatments for TB – a disease that has seen no new medicines in decades.

“This site represents our very serious effort to battle a deadly disease that is a threat to the world’s population,” Executive Vice President for Global Drug Discovery Jan Lundberg said in accepting the award.

To broaden the reach beyond the laboratory, we joined forces with the British Red Cross in 2002 to support the local Red Crescent societies in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan in an effort to heighten community awareness and education around TB. We have also partnered with the Indian government to support a research foundation in India with an established track record of helping the local scientific community.

According to the World Health Organization, (WHO), about 2 million people die from tuberculosis each year. WHO estimates that one-third of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide are co-infected with TB. Without proper treatment, approximately 90% of those living with HIV die within months of contracting TB.

Lena Mårtensson with Richard Mason, Vice President for CAT Business Development AstraZeneca Global Drug Development

Business partner
The Business Development Deal of the Year Award honours the art of business development activity and recognises a deal that best exemplifies a win-win situation for the parties involved. AstraZeneca and CAT fit the bill. Our two companies entered into a five-year research and development alliance last year and since then have forged a true partnership and a special relationship.

“We’ve coined an expression for our relationship, ‘jointness,’ ” said Lena Mårtensson, Director of AstraZeneca Discovery Alliances for Respiratory and Inflammation and Manager of the AstraZeneca – CAT alliance, who accepted the award. “We see everything as a true joint partnership.”

“It’s a great example of two companies coming together to do something they could not have done alone,” added Nigel Burns, Senior Vice President for CAT Strategic Product Collaborations.

The alliance offers an excellent balance and fit between CAT’s established expertise and capabilities in monoclonal antibody generation and optimisation, together with its process technology and early clinical skills, with AstraZeneca’s drug development capabilities and global market strength.

The agreement benefits CAT because it allows it, for the first time, to be involved with commercial activities, greatly accelerating its transition to a product-based company. We realise the expansion of our portfolio to include large molecules and enhance our ability to bring better drugs to market faster.

The Pharmaceutical Achievement awards
More than 300 executives and dignitaries from leading pharmaceutical research organisations attended the black tie presentation ceremony for the 2005 Pharmaceutical Achievement Awards. Seventeen awards were given out for achievements in five categories. An Executive Review Board composed of executives from small and large pharmaceutical research organisations, academicians from key research institutes and business and legal professionals, chose the award winners.

Published 10 August 2005