AstraZeneca ups cancer drug production at Alderley Park
pharmafile | November 11, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | AstraZeneca, Cancer, Zoladex, alderley park
AstraZeneca says it plans to invest around £120 million in a new cancer drug manufacturing facility at its plant in Alderley Park, Macclesfield.
The announcement is good news for the UK site, which will be dramatically downsized by the transfer of the bulk of AZ’s R&D operations there to Cambridge.
The new plant will be used to make Zoladex (goserelin acetate), an implantable treatment for patients with prostate cancer which despite being one of AZ’s older drugs remains a big seller, bringing in revenues of $749 million in the first nine months of 2013 thanks to strong growth in emerging markets such as China and Russia.
Zoladex is used to control hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, and to maintain low levels of testosterone in patients with castration-resistant forms of the disease, and as a fairly complex product to make has proved remarkably resistant to generic competition.
It has been manufactured at Alderley Park for the last 25 years using a complex, multistage formulation process that requires high-specification equipment in a controlled operating environment to ensure aseptic production.
The investment secures around 300 jobs at the site among workers already involved in Zoladex production, and stands to create up to 200 more temporary positions during the construction and commissioning phase between now and early 2017, when product made at the plant will start to ship.
“This new facility will support the continued production of this important medicine in the UK, commented David Smith, executive vice president, operations, at AZ. “[It] is a further signal of our long term commitment to the UK,” he added.
Macclesfield is AZ’s second largest manufacturing site, employing more than 1,000 people responsible producing up to five million tablets and capsules a day for distribution in more than 130 markets throughout the world.
Alderley Park is also the home to the BioHub recently set up by AZ and run by Biocity, which is trying to attract smaller companies to the site in order to make up for the 600 jobs that will move away.
The announcement comes after a series of negative news for the UK’s pharma sector, with Shire just starting a negotiation on the future of its R&D facility in Basingstoke, Novartis contemplating the closure of its unit in Horsham and AZ shutting an environmental lab in Brixham.
UK chancellor George Osborne, whose Tatton constituency includes Alderley Park, welcomed the announcement, saying it was a ‘vote of confidence’ in the area and “comes on top of the hundreds of new jobs being created on the Alderley Park site by new business after the difficult news there earlier this year”.
Phil Taylor
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