“We are very happy with how the project is going. Because of the talent we are finding, the support of all administrations, State, Generalitat and City Council, collaboration with private entities and the local innovation fabric. “Our center is growing at a rapid pace,” he assured.
In an event at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, in which the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonés, participated; the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Universities, Juan Cruz, and several councillors, Suárez explained that the Barcelona hub already has 500 employees, of 35 nationalities, and will reach 2,000 next year, also advancing the hiring objectives. that the group had.
Ruud Dobber, president of the Biopharmaceutical area of the British group, assured that “Spain plays a priority role within AstraZeneca's growth strategy worldwide,” and recalled that it is the first European country in the number of clinical trials and the second at the global level. world in oncology, only behind China.
The hub will be located in the Estel building, the former Telefónica headquarters in Barcelona's Eixample, where it will occupy 25,000 m2 of surface, "from where we will also contribute to making that area of the city a more vibrant environment." Currently the center is located in the El Dau building, on Diagonal, and the professionals will move in 2025, when the work on the new building is completed. The British firm has multidisciplinary teams with highly specialized professionals in clinical development, regulatory affairs, biometrics, IT and digital innovation, among others, of which 60% are women.
The hub is the company's first to integrate the innovative capabilities of AstraZeneca and Alexion (the group's rare diseases division) in a single space and focuses mainly on oncology, cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, respiratory diseases and vaccines, as well as rare diseases. Currently, it participates in 244 global research projects and 154 clinical studies
The Catalan authorities highlighted that the AstraZeneca hub gives definitive support to Barcelona's strategy of becoming the capital of the life sciences sector in southern Europe, in which the efforts of the Generalitat and the City Council coincide. The Barcelona area now concentrates the densest ecosystem of health companies in Europe. In Catalonia as a whole, the health sector has almost a quarter of a million employees and generates 39,000 million euros to GDP
