AstraZeneca has confirmed the final location of its European innovation hub in Barcelona, where it plans to invest 800 million euros and have up to 1,000 employees. The hub will be in the Estel building, the former headquarters of Telefónica in the Catalan capital, when its re-opens in 2025 after a comprehensive renovation.
The pharmaceutical multinational, member of CataloniaBio & HealthTech, has also announced that the president of its Spanish subsidiary, Rick R. Suárez, will now also be the head of the Barcelona R&D center. Suárez has been the company's president in Spain since 2020 and, with this appointment, he adds to his responsibilities as the president of the AstraZeneca Global Hub Barcelona with the aim of making it one of the major centers of clinical excellence and innovation in Europe. He will replace Dr. Gonzalo de Miquel, who will take on new roles within the hub, assuming leadership of two new therapeutic areas.
AstraZeneca has significantly intensified its commitment to Spain as a priority country within its global growth strategy. It is its first European country in terms of clinical trials for AstraZeneca and the second worldwide in oncology, second only to China.
The AstraZeneca Global Hub in Barcelona was inaugurated in March 2023 with the aim of providing a reference point for scientific innovation in Europe. The hiring of 1,000 employees is planned for 2025. The center has positioned itself as an important generator of qualified jobs in the region, currently employing over 500 professionals from 33 different nationalities, of which 60% are women.
"Spain and Barcelona have become key hubs in the field of innovation and life sciences. Its biomedical ecosystem represents great opportunities for collaboration, both with the public and private sectors, to scale our commitment to developing disruptive strategies, such as genomics or cell therapy, and for digital transformation and data science," assesses Rick R. Suárez, president of AstraZeneca in Spain.
AstraZeneca is strengthening public-private collaboration in its relationship with the government of the state, as well as with the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Barcelona City Council. It is in this line that the company will move its headquarters to the Estel Building in Barcelona at the beginning of 2025, thus promoting the city's and the country's leadership in the field of health.
Comments