Eisai creates jobs, readies Aricept NDA

Japan's Eisai has completed construction of a European Knowledge Centre in the UK, which could bring up to 250 jobs to the region. It's part of a £100 million effort to launch a strategic base giving Eisai it's first manufacturing facilities in Europe.

In addition to the manufacturing capabilities, the project includes a research laboratory and offices. Eisai will move its R&D activities, drug production and marketing to the new headquarters, where 500 people are expected to be employed. Half of those will be newly-created positions.

In a separate announcement, Eisai said that it's planning to submit an NDA for a new formulation of it's Alzheimer's drug Aricept in August or September. The existing version of Aricept makes up 40 percent of the company's sales, and will be going off-patent next year.

- read the Business Weekly report [1]
- see this report [2] on Aricept

Related Articles:
Eisai tells Pfizer to kiss Aricept goodbye [3]
Eisai inks deal for epilepsy drug [4]
TorreyPines sells Alzheimer's rights to Eisai [5]