Lundbeck’s new r&d strategy will cost 50 jobs
Greater proportion of investments will be placed outside the company
Danish company Lundbeck is to increase the scope of external collaboration as part of a new strategy for its r&d activities. As a result of the strategy Lundbeck will adjust the company’s areas of research and research staff – a move that is expected to result in staff reductions.
The strategy will bolster Lundbeck's ambition to remain among the world’s foremost pharmaceutical companies in the treatment of brain diseases, with future r&d activities increasingly based on the relationships between the biology of a disease and its symptoms.
‘This strategy provides Lundbeck with the most efficient platform for the future discovery and development of drugs that will be able to help and treat biologically defined groups of patients with brain diseases. It is precisely such drugs that we expect will be in demand in the future,’ says Peter Høngaard Andersen, executive vice president, research, at Lundbeck.
Lundbeck's research will in future concentrate on three main areas of biology: neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation and synaptic transmission. These areas are relevant to a wide range of brain disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases.
The second key element in Lundbeck's new research and development strategy is increased external co-operation through even more partnerships, worldwide, with researchers at academic institutions, colleges, universities and other biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
Lundbeck has for many years focused on establishing partnerships with leading experts in order to gain access to the latest knowledge. Now these partnerships will receive even higher priority, so Lundbeck will gain the best possible access to the latest discoveries in fields relevant to the company’s research and development activities.
The increased scope of external collaboration will also allow Lundbeck to concentrate on those areas of research and development that create most value.
As the new biological focus will require different staff competencies, the new strategy will result in Lundbeck adjusting its areas of research and research organisation. At the same time, the decision to increase external collaborations will mean that investments in these collaborations will increase.
Lundbeck is thus reorganising activities at its two research centres in Denmark and the US, resulting in the lost of approximately 50 positions. Overall, Lundbeck's investments in research and development will not be reduced, but a greater proportion of the investments will be placed outside the company.
