AstraZeneca is advancing plans to exit production in India by giving up its manufacturing license in the country some two years before it was set to expire.
AZ's local subsidiary, AstraZeneca Pharma India, announced its surrender of the manufacturing license to the country’s Drugs Controller and Licensing Authority in a Sept. 2 filing on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The license would have been valid up to December 2027, according to the filing (PDF).
The move comes as AstraZeneca plots its exit from the lone production facility it operates in the country, which is situated in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. The company did not immediately respond to Fierce Pharma's request for comment.
AZ has long signaled its plans to cease medicine manufacturing in India. In 2023, the U.K.-based drugmaker disclosed its intent to shutter its Bangalore plant “in due course," drafting plans to auction off the site in a “fully operational manner” to a buyer that would serve as a contract manufacturer for the AstraZeneca drugs made and packaged there.
By June 2024, the strategy for the site changed as AZ couldn’t find a “suitable” CMO buyer, according to another BSE filing (PDF). AstraZeneca is still angling to sell its Indian manufacturing unit, though a deal has yet to materialize, The Hindu Business Line reported this week.
In a November 2024 financial disclosure (PDF), AZ estimated that its exit from the manufacturing site would take “more than 12 months.” As of March 31, operations at the site were continuing, the company noted in a more recent financial disclosure (PDF) in May. First quarter expenses tied to the site closure came out to 636.4 million Indian Rupees ($7.2 million), according to the filing.
AstraZeneca added that it now expects operations in Bangalore to wrap up over the 2025-2026 fiscal year. India’s financial year runs from April 1 to March 31.
AstraZeneca Pharma India was established in 1979 and employs over 4,500 people across the country. In a report issued last year, AZ referred to its Indian manufacturing facility as “one of the finest in South East Asia.”
Meanwhile, in late 2024, the company laid off more than 125 employees in India as part of a strategic restructuring, local outlet The Economic Times reported in December. Those layoffs came after a prior workforce reduction of 103 in March 2023.