J&J chooses UK as a new hub to ‘listen’ for innovation
pharmafile | December 10, 2013 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | J&J, JJ, UK, innovation, research
Johnson & Johnson has chosen the UK as its formal European hub after announcing the creation of five new sites in the country designed to spot promising medical research in universities.
It is opening ‘partnering offices’ in Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, Edinburgh and Cardiff after settling on the UK as its ‘innovation hub’ for Europe.
Dr Kurt Hertogs, the company’s leader of incubator strategy, said that Britain had a ‘particular constellation’ of research and innovation that appealed.
“The reason J&J chose to establish its European hub here is that there are well-established academic institutions in the UK and a high density of start-ups,” Hertogs said.
J&J is looking for start-up companies and academic spin-offs in five fields of healthcare: illnesses of the immune system; cancer; neuroscience; infectious diseases; and cardiovascular disorders.
Hertogs said that the company was particularly keen to invest in research into prostate, lung and blood cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and mood disorders.
This year, J&J set up its European innovation headquarters in London, a decision hailed by science and universities minister David Willetts as a ‘vote of confidence’ in British innovation.
A spokesman for the biotech industry group the UK BioIndustry Association, said: “Choosing London really reflected what we’ve got here – a strong scientific background, a global centre for finance and a very strong bioscience cluster in the Oxford, Cambridge and London triangle.”
J&J which is most well-known to the public as a creator of consumer goods, now wants to expand its Janssen Pharmaceutica prescription medicines unit, the biggest earner for the firm.
It said that its new offices were part of an effort to work more closely with life sciences ‘hotspots’.
This all forms part of a common pattern for pharma – using the medical innovation from external partners to help shore up diminishing returns on their own research and development pipelines.
The UK is not the only country to gain investment from the company: last month J&J announced that it is planning to build a new biopharmaceutical production facility in Xi’an, Shaanxi province in China, where it operates a joint venture called Xi’an-Janssen Pharmaceutical.
But it has not all been positive news for the company – in November it was reportedly fined over $4 billion to settle thousands of legal cases related to patients who suffered from a faulty hip replacement.
This came less than two weeks after the firm admitted promoting its big-selling antipsychotic drug Risperdal off-label, costing J&J $2.2 billion in fines.
Ben Adams
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