AstraZeneca Continues Biologics Push

AstraZeneca will acquire DSM's biologics manufacturing facility in Montreal for an undisclosed sum. The drug company says it will use the 66,000-sq-ft facility to manufacture antibody drug candidates for clinical trials. It plans to begin full-scale production at the site in 2009.

AstraZeneca, which is in the process of acquiring the biotech firm MedImmune and recently purchased Cambridge Antibody Technologies, is on a push to expand its presence in biopharmaceuticals with an emphasis on monoclonal antibodies.

"This is a further step in our global plan to accelerate the delivery of promising preclinical biopharmaceutical candidate drugs into our development portfolio," says John Patterson, executive director of development at AstraZeneca.

DSM announced a mothballing of the Montreal plant in January 2006 as part of a restructuring of its pharmaceutical chemicals and biologics businesses. The Dutch company has since shifted the focus of its biologics business to a cell-line technology development partnership with Crucell.

"We are very pleased with this transaction, hereby completing an important step in our biologics strategy," says Leendert Staal, chief executive officer of DSM Pharmaceutical Products.