The president of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, has informed the First Vice-President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, that the pharmaceutical company plans to hire 1,000 more people in Spain as part of the investment plans until 2025.
The announcement was made during an institutional visit by Soriot in which the president of the company also participated in Spain, Rick R. Suarez. The specific company has announced the data and investment plans in the State until 2025 and has highlighted its global commitment to promote investment in the country “as a global engine of R&D growth” .
In Spain, AstraZeneca invested in 2021 more than 93 million euros in innovative projects, 48 million of which went to R&D. In 2022, AstraZeneca’s total commitment in Spain, including Alexionraised the total investment to around 400 million euros, more than four times the figure recorded a year earlier.
In terms of workforce, AstraZeneca increased its workforce by 20% during 2022, reaching 1,300 employees, to which around 1,000 more will be added in the coming years, according to the company’s plans. In terms of clinical trials, Spain hosted nearly 300 in 2022, involving more than 4,500 patients.
“Online” with other billionaires
After the meeting, the first vice president emphasized that AstraZeneca’s commitment will allow to create quality jobs and is in line with other multi-million dollar investment announcements by multinationals across all sectors in recent months.
“Spain is already a global leader in clinical trials and cutting-edge therapies”, emphasized Calviño, who sees “very likely” that new drugs will be introduced in a few years personalized precision in public health coverage. At the same time, the vice-president has highlighted that the pharmaceutical industry is a “key and high added value” activity for its contribution to the knowledge economy in Spain.
Spanish R&D ecosystem
And it is that, according to Pascal Soriot, the Spanish R&D ecosystem “it’s first class”, that is why he has committed to work with the Spanish Government to release the potential of innovative medicines as a “long-term economic growth engine”.
“We will continue to invest and increase our capabilities in environments committed to innovation and development “, he emphasized during the institutional visit.
At the meeting, the number of clinical trials in the main areas of the company, such as oncology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases, respiratory diseases, vaccines and immunotherapies and rare diseases and their projection, as well as the increase in the number of patients who have had access to the innovation so far and those who will have it in the near future.
The company currently has 179 clinical development programs, 15 of which are in the most advanced phases of study. “AstraZeneca reinforces its commitment to research and innovation, as well as improving the availability of new medicines with the new projects in Spain,” stressed Rick R. Suárez, president of the company in Spain.
At a global level, added Suárez, the company is “committed to strengthening health systems and increasingequitable and affordable patient access to treatments, and we have obtained third place in the 2020 Access to Medicines Index (AtMI).
Finally, both Soriot and Suárez have emphasized the importance of public and private collaborations, as was the case with the vaccine donation projects for the Covid-19 pandemic and other recent public and private initiatives such as agreement between the company and the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) to promote preclinical and translational research and the Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience (PHSSR).
Finally, the company’s senior management also wanted to highlight the recent investment of 5.5 million euros to new offices and the Innovation Hub in Madrid.