AstraZeneca has announced plans to invest $820 million CAD ($570 million) in its Canadian operations, which will create over 700 jobs across various sectors of the business.
It will also support the establishment of a larger, state-of-the-art office facility in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Ontario.
The expansion will contribute to building the province of Ontario’s position as a global hub for life sciences and biotechnology.
AstraZeneca has partnered with Invest Ontario, an agency that secures high-value business investments for the province, to expand the company’s global R&D hub at its Mississauga, Ontario headquarters.
Invest Ontario will be supporting AstraZeneca’s investment with a $16.1 million CAD ($11.2 million) grant of its own through the Invest Ontario Fund. The agency said it has also “provided the company with site selection services, market intelligence and immigration support to streamline the investment process.”
AstraZeneca said the investment will also go towards the company’s global goal of achieving $80 billion in total revenue and delivering 20 new medicines to patients worldwide by 2030. To date, the company has already launched eight of these medicines.
Additionally, AstraZeneca anticipates seven first Phase III clinical trial data readouts in 2025.In 2023, the pharma giant launched the new Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease Development Hub in Mississauga.
Related: Ontario Announces $40 Million Investment as it Aims to Become a Global Life Sciences Hub
“This investment is a reflection of our growing clinical pipeline, our strong belief in Canada’s potential as a global hub for life sciences innovation, and the value of public-private collaboration with the Ontario government. We believe the diverse talent pool together with the network of world-class universities, hospitals and research centres will help us bring new medicines to Canadians and patients worldwide,” said AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Sorio in the press release.
As one of Canada’s leading R&D investors, AstraZeneca said it contributed more than $230 million CAD ($160 million) to R&D in 2023.
AstraZeneca’s Canadian R&D hub, along with the Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease Development Hub, is spearheading more than 210 global clinical studies in various disease areas, including breast, lung and prostate cancer, as well as COPD, severe asthma and rare diseases.
Since 2023, AstraZeneca’s investments in Canada have exceeded $1.3 billion CAD ($906 million) with the creation of 1,200 high-skilled jobs.
AstraZeneca employs over 2,100 people across Canada, about 1,500 of which are at the company’s head office in Mississauga, Ontario.
AstraZeneca was also recently recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers for the second year in a row.
In 2024, the company completed a $3 billion CAD ($2.09 billion) acquisition of Fusion Pharmaceuticals, a Hamilton, Ontario-based company developing next-generation radioconjugates for cancer radiotherapy. The acquisition was one of the largest research investments in a Canadian biotech firm.
According to Invest Ontario, Ontario has the largest life sciences ecosystem in Canada, contributing to nearly 60% of the life science sector’s national revenue. Since 2018, the province has secured over $6 billion in new investments in the life sciences industry.
Ontario’s life sciences sector employs more than 72,000 people across 2,000 companies, with $12 billion in exports to global markets.
Last June, the Government of Ontario announced an investment of $40 million to bolster the sector as part of the province’s goal of becoming a global life sciences hub.
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