Member Article

Redx Pharma to open at AstraZeneca site

Merseyside drug company Redx Pharma will open a new £10.5m R&D facility at the AstraZeneca Alderley Park site in Cheshire, which the latter company has said it will leave in 2016.

Redx Pharma, who last week announced a new partnership with Canadian company Pharmascience, will create 119 high-value science jobs in a drug developing team.

This team will particularly focus on difficult-to-treat infections such as Hepatitis C and HIV, as well as developing new medicines to tackle resistance to antibiotics and viral infections.

An additional 28 positions will be created within the wider supply chain across a number of specialisms.

Redx Anti-Infectives has already started operations from the Cheshire site supported by a £4.7m grant from the UK Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF).

Funding was secured from a recent significant round of RGF, brokered by Manchester-based Acceleris Corporate Finance.

The business also raised investment from commercial partnering revenue and shareholder equity.

Dr Neil Murray, chief executive of Redx Pharma, commented: “The World Health Organisation has identified drug resistance, particularly in the area of antibiotics, as one of the most pressing human health concerns globally.

“Redx is a discovery engine for global pharma and it is innovative and agile companies like ours that can help the industry adapt to a new model of research and development where there is more willingness to outsource some of the challenges involved in creating new proprietary medicines.”

The company said its headquarters will remain in Liverpool whilst it executes its ambitious growth plans, and recognised the facilities at Alderley Park as “world class”.

Dr Murray added: “We will be working closely with our colleagues at AstraZeneca, who made a compelling commercial case to attract us to Alderley Park. We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.”

Clive Morris, AstraZeneca Vice President, R&D said: “We are delighted to welcome Redx to Alderley Park, which is an important first step in our ambition to secure a sustainable future for the site.

“We will continue to seek further opportunities to attract other innovation-driven companies and, wherever possible, build on the existing bioscience expertise and world class facilities available at Alderley Park.”

Redx Anti-Infectives is the third spin-out created by the Redx Pharma group, which was founded only three years ago.

Its other businesses include Liverpool-based Redx Oncology and Redx Crop Protection, which operates from Frome in Somerset.

The firm previously secured investment from RGF to launch Redx Oncology, which now employs 111 people in Liverpool.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .