GSK opens Spain’s first maximum biosecurity laboratory

The biopharmaceutical company GSK has opened the first level 4-biocointainment laboratory (maximum biosafety level) in Spain. It is located at its Global Health R&D Centre in Tres Cantos (Madrid). It is the first facility of its kind operated by a biopharmaceutical company in the world and one of the few of its kind in Europe.

Spain Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, visited the facility last March 3rd, along with Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant; Manuel de la Rocha Vázquez, Director of the Office of Economic Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office; and the Director of the Carlos III Health Institute, Marina Pollán. The visit took place before work involving pathogens began. From that point onwards, only trained and certified research staff will be permitted access to the facilities.

The new BSL-4 facility strengthens the country’s strategic autonomy and represents a significant step forward in the fields of defense and biosecurity. GSK has invested €5.2 million in this facility in Tres Cantos (Madrid), which will enable research, under the strictest safety protocols, into serious infectious diseases for which no treatments or preventive methods are currently available.

These new facilities are located at GSK’s Global Health R&D Centre in Tres Cantos, a leading centre for over 30 years in research into diseases affecting the most vulnerable populations, such as malaria, tuberculosis and antibiotic resistance. The new BSL-4 laboratory will enable research, with the highest safety standards, into new treatments against agents that cause serious diseases, including microorganisms that have developed resistance rendering current therapies ineffective; such as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, one of the major challenges currently facing global health. Furthermore, this facility will serve as a tool for tackling future epidemics or pandemics.

This reinforces GSK’s commitment to innovation and establishes our Tres Cantos R&D Centre as a global leader in the fight against infectious diseases. GSK is thus, once again, helping to position research carried out in Spain at the forefront of the international stage. Furthermore, this facility, which is of strategic importance to our country, enables GSK to fulfil its commitment to public-private partnership.

David Barros, Head of Global Health R&D at GSK, said: “With this facility, we are taking a decisive step towards finding new solutions to diseases that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations and towards promoting new treatments that will help improve global health”.

Over 30 years of experience at the Tres Cantos Global Health R&D Centre

All staff who will be working at the company’s new facilities have received specific training in operating BSL-4 laboratories, with internal and external certifications that will be renewed periodically to ensure the highest standards of safety and quality in research.

GSK’s centre in Tres Cantos employs over 100 researchers, approximately two-thirds of whom are women. Since its inception, it has been dedicated to developing therapies that are more effective, safer and more accessible to the populations and countries that need them most. The centre combines basic and applied research, international collaboration and a high-containment infrastructure (BSL-3; and now BSL-4) to advance global health.

Among its most significant contributions to research and innovation is the development of treatments to combat infectious diseases such as uncomplicated malaria and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, wich are responsible for over two million deaths annually and which predominantly affect low-income countries. The centre also investigates other vector-borne diseases (such as leishmaniasis and Chagas’ disease) and strategies to tackle antibiotic resistance. Key contributions include the development of infection models for identifying new antimalarials and the contribution to the development of tafenoquine as a single-dose treatment for the radical cure of malaria.

In the field of tuberculosis, leadership within international consortia (such as ERA4TB and UNITE4TB) has facilitated the discovery of new molecules and the securing of over 500 million euros in funding over the last decade, enabling the development of several preclinical candidates. Some of these new treatments are already in the clinical phase, where their efficacy is being evaluated in patients living in endemic areas, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa, in collaboration with local researchers, Spanish organizations and with the support of numerous institutions.

Meanwhile, research into diseases caused by kinetoplastids has generated preclinical candidates, one of which is already in Phase II in collaboration with DNDi.

This centre was also a pioneer in the adoption of open innovation. GSK published extensive collections of compounds identified in screening campaigns for malaria, tuberculosis, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, and opened access to these collections so that third parties could investigate mechanisms of action and generate new compounds with improved properties. This initiative has helped to advance numerous projects that have resulted in hundreds of publications and the distribution of the compound collections to numerous research centres around the world.

This spirit of collaboration is also reflected in the Tres Cantos OpenLab Foundation, a non-profit organisation established 15 years ago that enables independent scientists and academics from around the world to access GSK’s facilities to carry out their research. During this time, more than 100 projects have been carried out under this initiative, involving some 140 visiting researchers, with an average stay of 24 months.