Johnson & Johnson opens new R & D facility

[sajiv]

Johnson & Johnson opens new R & D facility

Mumbai, Global healthcare entity, Johnson & Johnson (J & J) opened its new late-phase research & development (R & D) centre to focus on research and development (R & D) of new compounds against HIV virus, Tubercolosis (TB), infectious diseases, and metabolic and inflamatory diseases, here today.

Built at a cost of USD nine million, the new 300-personnel Analytical & Pharmaceutical Development Centre (APDC) will also carry out last-phase testing of various new compounds developed in other centres the company's around the world. The APDC centre is the third of the company's with one in the US and another in Europe along with a virtual centre opened in Chennai last week.

The facility is part of the company's policy to focus on high medical needs and develop the necessary drugs for it on global basis and its shift towards tapping the growing Asia-Pacific economies and increasing demand for better healthcare.

The new centre will be part of the company's Asia Pacific (APAC) cluster with its headquaters in Shanghai, China which will co-ordinate the functioning of the centres.

Speaking at the opening of the facility today via telephone, J & J Global Research & Development, Pharmaceuticals, Company Group Chairman, Paul Stoffels said, " It marks an important milestone in the company's capacity to discover and develop new products and will be critical in the company's end-to-end process from research to marketing." On the company's policy for developing new drugs, Stoffels said, " We will follow an Open Innovation policy where we identify a medical need, then find a science for it. We have a broad pipeline from product development which has been assigned to the Asian centres and getting them approved globally. We already have a partner in India and are open to work with more not only among the pharmaceutical industry but from the academic field." " It takes around USD 1.2 billion to bring a product to the market, and its time to think about cost effectiveness like globalization of R & D without compromising on quality. Its critical that patent laws are in place and we always take precautions with all the partners we work with. Historically, we had concerns about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and patent laws in India, but we have seen major improvements," he added.

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