Astellas Completes the New Buildings in its Tsukuba Research Center (Miyukigaoka)
Astellas Pharma Inc. (“Astellas”; Headquarters: Tokyo; President and CEO: Masafumi Nogimori) has completed the new buildings in its Tsukuba Research Center (Miyukigaoka) this September and held an opening ceremony on October 1.
The new buildings consist of three research lab buildings, six stories above the ground and one underground (Buildings Nos. 6, 7 and 8), as well as an office building connected with all research facilities located in Miyukigaoka and a welfare facilities building with conference rooms and a cafeteria. The total floor area is approximately 85,000 m2. With this addition, the total floor area in Miyukigaoka has increased to approximately 140,000 m2, making it one of the largest drug discovery centers in Japan. The research lab buildings are equipped with technologies such as the latest automated compound storehouse. The buildings have free-access floors and system ceilings that make it possible to flexibly deal with changes in research themes and equipment. The office building has adopted an open floor system that enables researchers to freely communicate with each other as necessary. All new buildings utilize the latest pro-environmental, energy-saving technologies and are equipped with an energy supply system that dramatically reduces CO2 emission and a waste disposal system designed to protect the environment.
Astellas aims at “continuous invention of global products” under an eight-research labs system with the Tsukuba Research Center (Miyukigaoka and Tokodai) in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, the Tokyo Research Center, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, and the Kashima R&D Center in Osaka, Osaka Prefecture as research centers for drug discovery and R&D in Japan. Following the completion of these new research lab buildings, Astellas plans to gather its drug discovery research laboratories, including the Molecular Medicine Research Laboratories, the Pharmacology Research Laboratories, the Chemistry Research Laboratories, the Analysis & Pharmacokinetics Research Laboratories and the Applied Pharmcology Research Laboratories, in Miyukigaoka in April 2009. Together with the Fermentation Research Laboratories in Tokodai, these laboratories will play a central role in Astellas’s drug discovery research. Drug development research facilities, including the Drug Metabolism Research Laboratories and the Drug Safety Research Laboratories, will be put together in the Kashima R&D Center. The Tokyo Research Center will be closed.
Astellas aims at maximizing the speed and quality of new drug discovery research through this new buildings with various ideas and the latest technologies in order to achieve its mission to “contribute to people around the world with advanced, reliable drugs.”
Location : 21 Miyukigaoka, Tsukuba city, Ibaraki, Japan
Building area : approximately 21,000 m2
Total floor area : approximately 85,000 m2
Facilities : 3 research lab buildings, 1 office building, 1 welfare facilities
building (conference rooms and cafeteria), etc.
Construction started in : March 2007
Construction completed in : September 2008
Total cost of construction : approximately ¥30 billion
Details of the Tsukuba Research Center (Miyukigaoka)
Site area : approximately 192,000 m2
Building area : approximately 32,700 m2
Total floor area : approximately 140,000 m2 (2.6 times the current area)
Facilities : 8 research lab buildings, 1 office building, 1 welfare facilities
building, etc.
*The photo was provided by KOKYU MIWA ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY.
