The research centre, which aims to recruit additional world class scientists, will focus principally on finding a new treatment for tuberculosis, a disease which currently affects two million people every year in India and 16 million people worldwide, mostly in the developing world (WHO Report 2000).
The investment programme will include $10 million to create new research laboratories in Bangalore, and $5 million in 2001 to support research activities.
"With no new drugs for TB in the past 40 years, our remit will be to improve understanding of the basic physiology of the TB pathogen so that we can provide both a reliable diagnostic test and a more effective cure for the disease, " said Dr Claes Wilhelmsson, Executive Director, R&D at AstraZeneca. "These new laboratories will form an integral part of our research into infectious diseases and, together with academic collaborations, AstraZeneca in Bangalore will become a leading centre of excellence for TB research."
Dr Barry Furr, Chief Scientist and Head of the Project Evaluation Group at AstraZeneca, has been appointed to lead the laboratory which currently houses 65 scientists, and plans to recruit more scientists over the next five years from India and overseas.
The research programme, which will involve collaborations with academia and shared expertise with AstraZeneca’s genomics and infection research centres in Boston, USA, and in Cheshire, UK, will have three components:
Dr Stewart Cole, Head of the Unité de Génétique Moléculaire Bactérienne at The Institut Pasteur in Paris, who pioneered the work on the sequencing of the TB genome, is a member of the scientific advisory board for the new research centre said: "AstraZeneca is the only pharmaceutical company to recognise this area of medical need with a research programme in India dedicated to TB, and I am delighted to be able to work with them on this important project."
Dr Tanjore Balganesh, Head of Research at the Bangalore laboratory, said: "Bangalore is the academic centre of India and we are very excited to have this opportunity to attract top class scientists to work with us on this programme."
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Steve Brown
+44 (0)20 7304 5033
Chris Major
+44 (0)20 7304 5028
Leslie Wheeler
+44 (0) 1625 519 790
Kumud Sampath (Bangalore)
+91 80 3340372
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- TB is the single largest infectious disease killer of adults in the world. Although the majority of cases occur in developing countries, there is increasing evidence of the disease in industrialised countries also.
- Current treatment involves a multiple drug regime of four drugs taken over a minimum duration of six months to achieve a cure. No new drugs have been introduced for TB in the past 40 years. The problems of managing the disease are compounded by the ability of the infectious organism to evolve, adapt and develop drug resistance.
- Dr Barry Furr, appointed to lead the Bangalore laboratory, has a track record in drug discovery, having been involved in the discovery and development of two important anticancer drugs, Zoladex® and Casodex® at AstraZeneca.
- Dr Tanjore Balganesh, Vice President and Head of Research at Bangalore, is a leading scientist in India who joined Astra in 1987 from the Max Planck Institut in Berlin. In 1981 he gained a Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology at Calcutta University and afterwards spent three years in the Biology Department of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.
- In 1984 Astra AB set up the Bangalore site as a non-profit organisation engaged in the promotion of biomedical research and sponsorship of symposia in infectious disease in India. (The Symposium part was not a part of the remit until 1996).
- In February 2001, AstraZeneca announced it had completed a transaction to buy a controlling stake in the joint venture company Astra-IDL, now renamed AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd. Based in Bangalore, AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd manufactures and distributes AstraZeneca products.
- India is the 11th largest pharmaceuticals market in the world and is growing strongly.
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