AstraZeneca sells British R&D site, to take $275 mln charge

LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) has agreed to sell its Alderley Park research site in northern England to a public-private partnership group as it moves drug discovery to a new global centre in Cambridge (SES: E1:J91U.SI - news) .

The decision to close Alderley Park was a major blow for the northwest of the country, but the latest transaction has a silver lining as new owner Manchester Science Parks plans to keep the 400-acre site as a biotechnology campus.

The site lies with within the Cheshire parliamentary constituency of British Finance Minister George Osborne, who said on Wednesday he was delighted it would continue to play a role as a centre for the life sciences industry.

The sale follows a decision last March by AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot to move drug research and development to a new site in university city Cambridge in eastern England - a world-class centre for life sciences.

Shifting research to Cambridge and creating a new global headquarters for the company in the city is the centrepiece of a major restructuring plan unveiled by Soriot last year, which also included a 10 percent cut in total staff numbers by 2016.

The overall cost of the restructuring was initially put at $2.3 billion, although the company revised this up to $2.5 billion when it presented full-year results last month.

Following the sale of the Alderley Park site, AstraZeneca (EUREX: AZNF.EX - news) said it would take pretax impairment charges of $275 million to non-core R&D expense in the first quarter of 2014 as part of the wider restructuring programme.

The financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.