AstraZeneca revealed on Tuesday that it is moving its research on respiratory and inflammatory diseases to Mölndal in western Sweden. News of the Lund closure was greeted with shock and resignation by staff at the facility.
“A lot of people have been worried. We have escaped previous purges and hoped right until the end that it would work out this time too,” said Bo Servenius, chairman of the local chapter of the Akademikerföreningen trade union.
“A lot of people were stunned, silent and withdrawn. There were a lot of questions that came up: what happens now; can we move too?”
AstraZeneca’s Lund facility will cease to exist “in the latter part of 2011”, while the firm’s Mölndal operation is set to expand.
“Operations in Lund and Charnwood will be moved there,” according to a company statement.
Some staff from Lund may be offered the possibility of moving to Mölndal, where local Akademikerföreningen chairwoman Aina Illiano confessed to a great deal of uncertainty as to what the future might hold.
“It’s hard to say whether it will be plus or minus for Mölndal in the end,” she told news agency TT.
“The company is now going to examine what sort of competence it requires,” she added.
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