AstraZeneca has signed on to be a founding partner for a new life sciences research hub in China, to be housed just west of Shanghai.
The International Life Science Innovation Park—which will be built by the municipal government of Wuxi and the city’s high-tech district authority—plans to provide global companies with shared laboratory space, equipment and services, while offering links to local hospitals and academic institutions.
The project will also support AstraZeneca’s R&D efforts, including the company’s end-to-end development and commercialization work within the country—with Wuxi previously serving as home to the biotech’s China Commercial Innovation Center.
AstraZeneca was joined by some of its current international partners—Sweden’s BioVentureHub and The Skolkovo Foundation from Russia—during the signing of a memorandum of understanding alongside the U.K. BioIndustry Association, which has pledged to help companies establish operations in Wuxi.
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“China is an important and exciting opportunity for U.K. life science companies,” Steve Bates, chief executive of the U.K. BioIndustry Association, said in a statement. “The chance to participate in the creation of the new Wuxi cluster is one not to be missed.”
“This new opportunity will enable U.K. companies to co-locate with AstraZeneca in China, within a truly supportive local ecosystem, making it easier for U.K. life sciences companies to partner, grow and innovate with like-minded dynamic companies and investors in China,” Bates said.
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AstraZeneca has been making more inroads to China—spending millions to widen its R&D footprint, alongside manufacturing partnerships with WuXi AppTec—while other U.K. drugmakers have run into obstacles at times. In the months before AstraZeneca formed a $133 million Chinese joint venture in 2017, GlaxoSmithKline announced that would close its neuroscience R&D center in Shanghai and move key programs to the U.S. Though GSK did not say how many staffers would be affected by the reorganization, it did say the company’s larger R&D organization would remain in the city, with plans to expand into additional medicines and continue its work with the Institute for Infectious Diseases and Public Health in Beijing.
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AstraZeneca’s investments appear to be paying off: in recent fourth-quarter financial results, the company saw double-digit growth from China in 2018. For example, the company’s blockbuster lung cancer drug Tagrisso outperformed analysts’ expectations, with more than half of its emerging market sales coming from China. AstraZeneca expects Tagrisso to become its overall top-selling medicine in 2019, after securing first-line approvals in EGFR-related non-small cell lung cancer and $1.86 billion in global sales last year.
While the company agreed to big discounts to get it on China’s National Reimbursement Drug List, AstraZeneca expects to see a large number of new patients come on to the therapy, due to a higher prevalence of EGFR mutations in the Asia-Pacific region as well as a potential first-line approval in the first half of 2019.