AstraZeneca invests $100M in Boston R&D

AstraZeneca Plc is investing $100 million at its drug research center in Waltham.

The aim of the investment is to strategically boost the company's work on infectious diseases and to expand its cancer R&D.

The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker, which is under pressure to improve its product pipeline following a series of late-stage failures, said today that the expansion would accommodate up to 100 additional researchers.

The new staff will join more than 400 existing employees at the site.

Most of the extra resources will go into finding new treatments for infections, including novel antibiotics.

Antibiotics have been viewed in the past by many drug companies as a low-growth area and only 10 new antibacterials have been introduced since 1998, of which just two were truly novel.

But the emergence of hospital "superbugs" such as MRSA, which are resistant to existing medicines, has increased the need for alternative treatments.

Construction of the new 132,000 square foot unit at Waltham will begin during the first quarter of 2007 with completion scheduled by mid 2009. (Reuters)