Eisai expands UK base
pharmafile | March 21, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | EMEA, Eisai, Hatfield, expansion
Eisai is expanding its UK headquarters to support the company’s growing European, Middle Eastern and African business.
The expansion will come from its British base in Hatfield, which was opened in 2009 at a cost of £100 million.
The Japanese firm said that new jobs should be created under the plans, and the decision was made possible because of the UK government’s commitment to the UK life sciences industry.
Gary Hendler, the new president and chief executive of the EMEA region, said: “Eisai has been successfully operating in Europe for more than 20 years and we are deeply proud to be expanding our efforts to increase access to medicines based on a long-term sustainable strategy to improve affordability, availability and adoption.
“Our new UK-based EMEA hub will support these efforts, as well as improving knowledge interaction across the region, including shared pricing/reimbursement strategies and the transmission of medical and marketing knowledge.”
The new EMEA expansion is part of the company’s long-term plan to have a presence in the top 20 pharma market regions by 2015.
Eisai said it chose to base its EMEA operations in the UK, as it recognises the country’s importance as a global hub for the pharma industry.
Hendler added that the decision had been made easier by recent initiatives to support the life sciences sector championed by the government.
This includes last year’s diffusion of innovation report, a collaborative effort between the UK pharma industry, the NHS and the government, which aims to give greater support to life science companies and encourage innovation in the NHS.
Globally Eisai has suffered from large patent cliffs, with the recent lose of protection for its Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil) hitting the firm hard.
Last year Eisai said it was planning to cut 900 hundred jobs in the US, Japan and Europe by 2016, to help offset the impact felt by Aricept’s loss.
The future growth of the firm will be dependent on its new breast cancer drug Halaven (eribulin), which gained US and European approvals last year.
Ben Adams
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