Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), owned by AstraZeneca, will be folded into MedImmune and will adopt its name. The new MedImmune business unit will unite the resources and expertise from CAT, the pre-existing MedImmune and other biologics activities within the AstraZeneca Group, under the “MedImmune” name.

With this structure, AZ has immediately created one of the world’s leading vertically integrated biotechnology businesses, with more than $1.3 billion in revenues in 2006, a pipeline of approximately 100 research projects and more than one dozen clinical product candidates, and more than 3,000 employees worldwide, according to AZ.

“The new MedImmune is now the operationally independent and strategically aligned biologics business unit of AstraZeneca,” said David M. Mott, MedImmune president and chief executive officer. “Bringing together the biologics expertise of CAT, MedImmune and AstraZeneca allows us to preserve MedImmune’s traditional biotech agility and entrepreneurial spirit while encouraging strategic collaboration and cross fertilization of ideas under AstraZeneca’s world-class research umbrella.”

As part of the integration, John Stageman, Ph.D., vice president of AstraZeneca biopharmaceutical strategic planning, will assume the role of interim site head in Cambridge. Dr. Stageman commented, “AstraZeneca’s biologics capabilities have been enhanced significantly by the acquisitions of CAT and MedImmune to create a more robust, highly competitive and fully integrated biotechnology business. The scientific, technical and medical expertise that this team brings together is world class in discovering, developing, manufacturing and commercializing biopharmaceutical products.”

AstraZeneca acquired CAT, a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing human monoclonal antibody therapeutics, in June 2006. At the time, AZ’s goal was for biologics to account for 25% of its product pipeline by 2010. The company got a jump on this strategy in 2007, when it acquired MedImmune.