AstraZeneca and BioDuro expand discovery contract
Under the updated contract, financial terms of which were not made public, BioDuro will provide integrated research services in the areas of chemistry, biology, ADME, and DMPKto help enhance AstraZeneca’s discovery program and shorten timelines.
Lena Martensson, AstraZeneca’s director of strategic planning and business development explained that the new deal is based on the firm's previous success and excellent working relationship with BioDuro.
Martensson said that: "After a successful collaboration involving discovery chemistry, ADMET, and DMPK, AstraZeneca has expanded its collaboration with BioDuro to leverage the strengths of its team to help develop new therapeutics."
This positive opinion was echoed by BioDuro CEO John Oyler who said that the firm "is pleased to build upon this existing collaboration and work closely with the experienced team at AstraZeneca to develop new clinical compounds.”
BioDuro has a team of 580 researches and technicians at its facility in the Chinese capital Beijing. It currently has a roster of 40 pharma and biotech clients that it claims include 10 of the top 12 worldwide.
With Big Pharma increasingly cutting R&D budgets and in-house expertise being scaled-back there is considerable scope for contract research organisations (CRO) to expand their businesses.
BioDuro appears to have positioned itself well to take advantage of the burgeoning contract research market, with Frost & Sullivan predicting Asian CROs will be doing $2bn worth of business a year before 2010.
