Worker bees moaning about senior management.....yawn.
Maybe you should have listened at those learner player workshops and made things happen.
It's people being so negative and relentlessly wise after the event that created the atmosphere at AP which Mene and PS so disliked.

MITP, Leadership Capabilities, Lean Sigma, Knower/Learner etc.

So glad I got away.

MONORAIL!

Dont you get it! Not many Northerners are going to be allowed to move...

Under a Tory government northerners generally have to get on a bike. Cambridge has lots of bikes to make them feel at home.

Worked at AP until last June. Look at what wonderful initiatives like Leadership Capabilities, Continuous Improvement and metrics have helped to achieve. Shame senior management couldn't see the light of day and let scientists do their job as they know how then maybe drugs would have been discovered. Has been going wrong since the company cock ups over Exanta and Irresa. All of the serious errors at senior management levels. Always the company workers who carry the can and suffer most in the end. AZ now reaping the rewards of those errors.

Sites under consideration are adjacent to Francis Crick Avenue and Newmarket Road areas.

Agree completely, a merger within the year will stop all the building plans.

The whole ball game with AZ is growth of Brillinta.
As a result I predict AZ will never set foot in CAmbridge.

Pascal has completely failed after only months in the job. This was the last hope - game over.

Cambridge UK site to be next to Addenbrooks Hospital

100 from CVGI? Does it mean leaving some areas of research or are all areas to cut about 30%?

"That, my boy, is the whole point. There's no desire to see even 50% transfer. That would then be 'same shit, different postcode'. Not what your man wants".

You are right on the money - when are folks at AP going to realise it is 1600 roles not people that are being relocated. It is not whether even 50% are prepared to relocate, Pangalos et al want much much less than 50% to relocate. Soirot and Pangalos want rid of AP and the staff therein. They will try to keep a small number of key individuals which each function will have to identify, the rest will be out. The reality is come 2016, the majority of people currently employed by AZ at Alderley Park will be no longer employed by AZ. The purpose of the new base in Cambridge is to clear the decks and start again. Sad but true.

"Yes, there's a top site in the East Mids, good road/rail/air links, good facilities, just right for 1200-1500 FTE engaged in Discovery complete with infrastructure.

Oh yeah, you shut that one 15months ago."

Small problem with this... the main car park is currently a waste plastic storage facility! :(

100 is from cvgi, they are cutting 30% of their FTEs. Then the rest might come from the supporting functions DS and who else? Those we will know when cvgi is done with their consultancy within the next 4 weeks.

Yes, there's a top site in the East Mids, good road/rail/air links, good facilities, just right for 1200-1500 FTE engaged in Discovery complete with infrastructure.

Oh yeah, you shut that one 15months ago.

With a good relocation package they might get 25% staff to move if they are lucky and people are desparate. My guess would be 12 to 16%.

Building a new site doesn't actually take that long to achieve if you go about it in the right way. Small, generic, "modifed warehouses" can be thrown up in a couple of months. It's only the gold-plated, diamond encrusted mega-structures that AZ normally choose to build that take years to complete.. just like the ones in Loughborough and AP

That, my boy, is the whole point. There's no desire to see even 50% transfer. That would then be 'same shit, different postcode'. Not what your man wants.

Any news on the 200 jobs to be shed in Molndal? It would be AZ logic if it involves projects and staff moved from other sites...

That will happen anyway, there is no way that 80% of people will move down there. I would say you would be lucky to get upto 50% and probably less

Agree Macc site very vulnerable without AP. I suspect when whatever it is that is being manufactured at Macc that is too difficult to tech transfer somewhere else is not profitable anymore the manufacturing and science roles will go at Macc. While the site is being used for manufacturing they may as well keep the scientists there as it gives a bit of breathing space to get Cambridge up and running and get any AP staff they want to retain moved and settled before moving recruiting a second wave. Time to stop being complacent good folk of Hurdsfield - don't assume you will keep escaping the chop - your continued presence in the North West makes no sense.
Also suspect the 700 'saved' non-science jobs at AP will disappear too in time... I believe they were only saved because of pressure from George Osbourne.
For those of you unaffected by 2010, 2012 or the latest changes, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee - this is it, if this doesn't work, you're all out of the door.

just come from a meeting where we asked, don't we need planning permission for this site that the land hasn't been purchased yet. No AZ dont need such things!

So a site to be built and ready for habitation by 2016 for over 4k people and car parks! maybe AZ should go into building and give up on drugs if they can go from no plans to a working business in such a short time.

The issue with Macc is that it's an Ops site and therefore relatively cheap for R&D to use as a base. R&D will move out of Macclesfield in due time but only when Ops finally decide to outsource all their secondary manufacturing to CMOs. Even then, AZ are more likely to sell the Ops facilities to a CMO (with a nice 5 year+ supply agreement)and TUPE the staf. In that circumstance, R&D may stay..

Predit that next to close will be the macc. site.It is now more vunerable after Alderly closure.Would have been too much change in the organisation to do it now.

The new CEO needs to get rid of the performance management system (leadership capabilities) and bring in scientific capabilities which are appropriate to a science based industry.

Non-Medi/AZ employees here. CAT were the originators of both Humira and Benlysta, so hard o see how one says hey have done nothing. They have also contributed significanlty to the current Medi pipeline.

Ex-Genetech chief grows biological arm of business. Not really surprising TBH.

What must be really annoying the new CEO is the incompetance of the previous CEO. The Lund site is in the largest bio-hub in europe and had a significant background in R&I. If Soirot was in charge 3 years ago I suspect that Molndal would have been exited and Lund retained and expanded.

I think the Cambridge move is bold and positive move. But plan the location to be more like an "internal science park". Smaller buildings dedicated to delivering the full value chain (sorry..) in one building. Yes, you'd lose some value with duplication but you'd create a new style of working for Big Pharma. And, if all else fails, there's a reasonable chance of selling the site off as a genuine science park!!

Bulletproof - yeah, they thought that at AP too.

Times, they are a changing.

And medi USA has done ??

Fluenz/Flumist isn't a CAT product. It was discovered by an academic, developed by Aviron which was bought by Medi. I agree the CAT site has delivered nothing and seems to be staffed by people who think they are bulletproof.

Humera was a BASF Knoll product. Abbott got it when they bought the German company

This is an opportunity for real change in AZ. It's more than just new buildings. If AZ get this right, they could really build an innovative culture here.

Pascal, this is a message for you: don't just transplant the same structure that you have now to a new location. Look at really innovative businesses, see what they do well and grab the best bits. Get rid of the antiquated performance management system, and the dreadful management structure.

Go on! I dare you!

Get rid of middle managers. It is insane to have so many middle managers that they almost out number the people actually doing the work in the lab. Those managers slow things up and prevent innovation to cover their own butts. Without a rethink on how many people are in do nothing management positions vs wet lab positions, this company is not going to recover.

AZ World HQ and R&D to be at Cambridge UK. Big announcement on BBC Look East News last night. 1500 jobs to be created.

"I don't know the details of the Humera deal but I believe the product was discovered using CAT phage technology. Any discoveries from this program Abbott had first option on but had to pay CAT a royalty for. Obviously for Humera this was a lot a money but nowhere near as much if CAT could have done some shared development program"

So CAT used phage-display, which has been around a lot longer than CAT, to find an anti-TNF which was Abbott's idea? doesn't that make CAT just a CRO?

Prediction. As revenues fall, the closure plans will remain unchanged but the new lab plans will gradually shrink. Who really knows what will be in Cambridge in 2016. All the best to everyone involved.

Fluenz?

Unfortunately Cambridge UK has about the same level of innovation as any other third tier biotech cluster. Sad to see the UK "save jobs" while sinking the ship. What a waste of money and time.

The CAT site is nonproductive - lots of people talking about Humira but nothing to show from the last 10-15 years. AstraZeneca has not launched a single product from CAT technology since the acquisition. Zero, Nada, Zilch, Nothing.

A sad day indeed. I was at AZ and saw a great pipeline "pissed up the wall" by hubris. arrogance and incompetent leaders who were deskilled ( some did not have the skills in the first place). A bunch of tossers like Les Hughes, Brent Vose, Alan Barge underpinned by even deeper mediocrities like Andrew hughes. Phillip Hedge etc ....
Next step bring in leaders from the most incompentent R+D organisation in the industry: Pfizer...
Result failure, misery and sadness for large number of people: yes real people..

The party is over and if you think MP, BJ and BM will save the day... dream on.....

Take your money and run and whilst at it spit at Dame Nancy Rothwell who the board and took the money

A sad day indeed.

Boston: one of, if not the top, biotech/innovation/VC hubs in the world. Some of the top universities/institutes in the world (Harvard, MIT, Broad, not to mention half a dozen other major research schools), some of the top cancer centers/hospitals in the world (DFCI, MGH). Waltham site has empty labs and room to grow. So why blow millions to build in Cambridge and ignore the obvious choice?

I don't know the details of the Humera deal but I believe the product was discovered using CAT phage technology. Any discoveries from this program Abbott had first option on but had to pay CAT a royalty for. Obviously for Humera this was a lot a money but nowhere near as much if CAT could have done some shared development program

Re Dads Army - we're doomed or don't panic?

" Cambridge bipharms arm (pre Medi) years ago which had a real blockbuster discovery (Humeria), unfortunately then licensed out to Abbott."

Did CAT have any IP on Humera or was it contract research?

"Totally agree. It is not about saving money & its not about managing the loss of income from the patent cliff, this is about exorcising AZ of the people, practices and culture of AP. Its about building a brand new R&D organisation from the beginning - new people, new practices, new culture It is about the future, not the past or the present.

The loss of income will be dealt with by acquisition of assets, whether they be single molecules or companies, only a few really know."

AZ currently has about $8bn in cash and $10bn in debt so not a lot to play with to replace revenue of around $10bn/yr. Last year AZ made $6bn profit but revenue is going to drop by around $8 - $10bn by 2016, so will be running a loss of $2 - $4bn/yr. It's all very well to build for the future but if you have a net debt plus you're going to be making a loss of $2-$4bn/yr then you don't have a very long future to be thinking about. The numbers don't add up: there's going to have to be some heavy cost-cutting soon.

Re Medi delivery
A lot of noise/promises but not much else so far. Medi pipeline looks good but then all pipelines look good until they actually have to deliver real products (cf AZ small molecules) and then they do not look so good any more.
AZ needed a biopharm arm but basically massively overpaid for Medi. AZ would have been better off making a real effort to rapidly build up their Cambridge bipharms arm (pre Medi) years ago which had a real blockbuster discovery (Humeria), unfortunately then licensed out to Abbott.

Out of interest what has medi delivered?

'Apparently this isn't a cost cutting measure. It's an investment for the future.''

Totally agree. It is not about saving money & its not about managing the loss of income from the patent cliff, this is about exorcising AZ of the people, practices and culture of AP. Its about building a brand new R&D organisation from the beginning - new people, new practices, new culture It is about the future, not the past or the present.

The loss of income will be dealt with by acquisition of assets, whether they be single molecules or companies, only a few really know.

Unless you are director/vp level (or have a large inheritance) you can forget about actually living in or around Cambridge as its so expensive. The problem is there is then not much else around for about 20 miles in any direction. Lots of attractive country properties but not everyone wants to live miles from the nearest shops/schools/facilities & no footpaths. Ok if you want isolation though.
Yes, when you go away from Cambridge the house prices go down but there is a very good reason for this !
I suspect mene will want to recruit mainly new people anyway so maybe moving to the Cambridge area is all a bit academic for AP folks.

In my South Cambs village, we have shops, primary school, secondary school, pubs and short drive/cycle to the Science Park.....+ 5 miles to Tesco..... I moved here in 1998 after doing my BSc, MSc and PhD in Manchester and have never considered moving back to the NW.....oh, I forgot that the weather is better down here and the houses are a load cheaper than the villages surrounding Alderley Edge!!

There is a saying from dads army that seems appropriate.
How can this fill an empty pipeline. For the past 3 or 4 years all effort had been in restructuring and cost cutting. This will just prolong this for another 3 + years. No one is going to be doing drug discovery they will be re applying for their job, looking for another job, moving the family, moaning. R and I lost many of its best people just when it could ill afford to.
Anything new will be too late

Apparently this isn't a cost cutting measure. It's an investment for the future. The logic behind it seems sound,it's a shame it's far far too late. AZ will set up a hub in Cambridge and thrash away at small and large molecules using target based drug discovery till they run out of cash. Then this cycle of slash and burn will start again in 2020. Sooner or later it will not have the resources to do anything other than make the SET very rich. Then its lights out