AstraZeneca pledges to invest £120m in UK cancer drug factory
ASTRAZENECA said yesterday it would invest £120m in a new facility at its global manufacturing site in Macclesfield, in the north west of England, to continue production of prostate cancer drug Zoladex.
The medicine is the company’s fifth largest selling brand with annual sales of around $1bn. Zoladex has been manufactured at AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield plant for over 25 years.
The drug, which is used in 100 countries worldwide, is seeing renewed demand from China, Russia and other emerging markets.
The investment will secure 300 existing Zoladex jobs and will create more than 200 temporary positions in the area – where AstraZeneca is cutting research work – during the construction and commissioning phase between now and early 2017.
The building of the new facility will begin this year.
Around 1,000 people are already employed at the Macclesfield site, which is AstraZeneca’s second-biggest British site.
“Having considered a number of options globally, we believe it is the right choice to build the new facility in Macclesfield, which has been home to Zoladex manufacturing – and the expertise that goes along with it – for many years,” said David Smith, executive vice-president, operations at AstraZeneca.