AstraZeneca Plc, the United Kingdom-based global pharmaceutical major, has opened its multi-million dollar research facility in Bangalore to focus primarily on finding new treatments for tuberculosis.

Highlighting the $17.8-billion AstraZeneca's commitment to India, which combines TB research and manufacturing capabilities, AsztraZeneca CEO Sir Tom McKillp said on Monday that AstraZeneca Discovery Bangalore had been set the challenge of finding the world's first new TB drug since 1964.

The new R&D facility, one of the company's nine such centers the world over, was inaugurated by Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna on Monday.

"AstraZeneca will make any TB medicines discovered in these laboratories available for clinical development and supply to the world's poorest countries at low prices, in partnership with governments, healthcare systems, international agencies and others," McKillp stated.

AstraZeneca, which has already invested $10 million for the drug discovery centre in Bangalore, will be investing another $30 million over the next 5 years for laboratory equipment and operations costs.

The discovery centre in Bangalore, with more than 100 scientists, works closely with AstraZeneca's global network of research and development centers especially the genomics and infection research centres in Boston, US, and in Cheshire, UK.

The AstraZeneca research programme in Bangalore, which also involves collaborations with academia, is utilising the latest technologies in drug discovery and development to find new candidate drugs that are better than existing treatments, active with shorter duration of therapy, and active against latent disease and resistance organisms.

AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and the supply of healthcare services.