Italy's Chiesi to build Euro 70m r&d centre
European pharmaceutical company Chiesi is to consolidate its r&d facilities into a new Euro 70m centre in Parma, Italy as a part of its strategy to become a global drugs company.
European pharmaceutical company Chiesi is to consolidate its r&d facilities into a new Euro 70m centre in Parma, Italy as a part of its strategy to become a global drugs company.
The company's head of r&d, Paulo Chiesi, said the group wanted to amalgamate its five Italian sites into one centre, which will become the heart of a research network linking universities in Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and beyond.
Chiesi intends to continue developing its expertise in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as well as in rare diseases.
The new centre will be involved in all stages of r&d from discovery and pre-clinical studies to clinical drug trials and product filings.
Construction work, which started at the beginning of 2009, should be completed during 2011.
Chiesi invested â"šÂ¬108m in r&d in 2008, almost 15% of its turnover. It expects to invest â"šÂ¬126m this year.
The Italian group's sales target for 2009 is â"šÂ¬841m, with â"šÂ¬534m expected to come from markets outside Italy and â"šÂ¬307m in its domestic market. Last year sales rose 14% to â"šÂ¬748m.
The company's most recent growth has been led by Foster, a fixed-dose asthma combination treatment of the steroid beclometasone disproportionate and the long acting beta2 agonist formoterol fumarate.
The drug was launched in Germany in 2006 as Innovair and is now sold in around 20 European countries.
Paolo Chiesi said the new research site would play a role in developing Foster for additional indications such as COPD and therapeutic uses in adolescent and paediatric populations.
The company will also concentrate on neonatal medical needs. Curosurf, its drug for neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, is said to be the "worldwide gold standard" for this life-threatening disease. It has been on the market since 1992 and has been used to treat more than 800,000 infants.
It will also develop a new completely synthetic surfactant. If all goes well, clinical trials could start in the second quarter of next year.
In addition, the company is developing treatments for apnea and bronchopulmonary dysplasia.