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ASTRAZENECA will close its research and development centres at Charnwood, UK, and Lund, Sweden in a major R&D shake-up.

Also closing is the company’s facility with Kudos in Cambridge, while it is looking to sell Arrow Therapeutics in London, which it acquired in 2007. Pharmaceutical development work at its Avlon facility near Bristol will also cease, but manufacturing at the site will continue. Early-stage development work in Wilmington, US, will cease, with late-stage medicine development continuing.

The cuts will affect 3500 R&D positions by 2014, by which time all closures and cutbacks will come into force. AstraZeneca says that where possible, it will look at re-skilling and re-deploying employees, with some being offered relocation. In all, 1800 people are likely to lose their jobs, but AstraZeneca is still in negotiations with its staff. IChemE members at Charnwood number 16.

The company says the cuts come as a result of the creation of Innovative Medicines Units and a Global Medicines Development function, but stressed that it will maintain research in its seven major R&D areas – cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, oncology, respiratory, inflammation, neuroscience and infection. It will, however, cease research in several diseases including thrombosis, ovarian and bladder cancers, schizophrenia, hepatitis C and vaccines other than respiratory syncytial virus and influenza.

“AstraZeneca’s strategic commitment to investing in innovative research and development is as clear as ever. We have made real strides in improving our efficiency in recent years, but there is a continuing need to adapt our organisation in anticipation of future challenges. These proposed changes will help us create a more focused, innovative and productive company,” says Anders Ekblom, executive vp of development at AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca said in January that it would cut 8000 jobs over the next four years in a bid to mitigate losses from drugs going off-patent, many US lawsuits and a projected fall in profit. Although the company would not say at the time exactly where the axe would fall, it admitted there was a lack of new drugs in the R&D pipeline. GlaxoSmithKline said in February that it was in consultation with staff at its Harlow, Essex, site with regards to redundancies, also in a bid to cut costs and increase its return on R&D.