ESTEVE Fosters R & D by Transferring its Center for Drug Discovery to the Science Park of Barcelona (PCB)

BARCELONA, Spain, September 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

92 people will work in the 2,440 m² Drug Discovery Center.

ESTEVE's R & D team includes a total of 350 people, 13% of the total global workforce, with the capability to work in all areas of drug discovery and the development of new medicines. This new R&D Center will house 92 scientists focused on two key phases in drug development; (1) The discovery phase, the phase during which new chemical entities are identified that may have the ability to positively change the course of a disease and, (2) the preclinical development phase, which includes performing all the necessary tests to provide the appropriate evidence to allow a new drug to be evaluated in humans.

The transfer to the PCB is an example of ESTEVE's commitment to research, despite the difficult socio-economic environment, as a way to maintain long-term sustainability. One of the keys to this sustainability is the ability to provide innovative solutions to medical needs that have not yet been adequately met. In this new facility, the company expects to increase performance in its R & D activities, improving the overall productivity of the discovery process in the development of new drugs and shorten the time to market.

This is the first alliance of its kind, where a large pharmaceutical company will locate all key competence units for drug discovery and preclinical development in a top quality academic / scientific environment in Spain.

The decision-making process to transfer the R & D team to the PCB took into consideration several factors, the most notable of which is the excellent infrastructure, the advantages of working in a high quality scientific and technical environment and the presence, in a common area, of scholars, researchers, talented young people and groups of entrepreneurs. It represents a further step towards a single model of open innovation in pharmaceutical R & D. ESTEVE's key strategy in R & D is an active policy of creating strategic alliances with universities, public research centres, technology companies and other companies in the sector, both in Spain and abroad

For more information go to http://www.esteve.com/investigacion-desarrollo