AstraZeneca chooses Barcelona for its European rare diseases research center

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will open a center of excellence in Barcelona to accelerate the development of new generation drugs in the field of rare diseases, which will create 100 jobs in the next two years. Preferably, these will be doctors, biologists, pharmacists, and other health professionals with experience in clinical trials for rare diseases.

The new development and clinical trials hub will have a global reach and is the first for Europe as a whole. Its objective is to promote and develop treatment options, expanding global clinical development and operations capabilities, and improve the lives of people suffering from these pathologies, which often lack therapies. According to the pharmaceutical company, rare diseases represent a significant unmet medical need, as, of the nearly 7,000 rare diseases, about 95% do not have a treatment.

The project is expected to become "one of the largest centers of clinical excellence and innovation for this type of disease in Europe," according to the recently appointed vice president of the new center, Gonzalo de Miquel, from Barcelona. The project manager was currently Vice President of BioPharmaceuticals Medical Respiratory & Immunology at AstraZeneca.

The Anglo-Swedish multinational will open the R&D center through one of its subsidiaries, the biotechnology company Alexion Pharmaceuticals, based in Massachusetts (Boston), which it acquired in 2021 to accelerate the development of new generation drugs in its specialty of rare diseases. Alexion prioritizes research into new molecules and focuses its development efforts on hematology, nephrology, neurology, metabolic disorders, cardiology, and ophthalmology. Marc Dunoyer, CEO of Alexion, believes that the launch of the clinical trials project in the Catalan capital represents "the ongoing commitment to continue increasing our global R&D efforts".

Alexion currently has 17 trials underway in various phases of development and will soon start several more, an undetermined number of which will be led from Spain, according to company sources. AstraZeneca's investment project in Catalonia has the support of Acció, the agency for business competitiveness of the Department of Business of the Generalitat.

According to AstraZeneca, the center will represent "a significant investment" and is expected to open next September. Since 2015, the multinational already has a center in Barcelona specialized in one of its therapeutic areas, respiratory medicine, with the clinical development of inhaled drugs.

The multinational already has a center in Barcelona specialized in respiratory medicine

AstraZeneca, based in Cambridge (United Kingdom), closed the 2021 financial year with total sales of 37,417 million dollars, of which the rare diseases division, which it acquired last July, represents 8%.

The company, which operates in more than a hundred countries, allocated 9,736 million dollars to research and development last year and plans to invest almost 8,000 million in 2022.