Servier, the second-largest pharmaceuticals company in France, is on the verge of investing £100 million to establish a facility in Britain to research heart and cancer drugs, The Times has learnt.

The move suggests that fears about British animal rights extremism are receding.

Servier, a privately owned company with 17,500 employees worldwide and annual sales of £2 billion, will make a final decision on the investment by the end of the month.

The facility outside London would be one of four big research and development plants that Servier operates. The others are in France — one at Orléans and two near Paris. The company has considered locating its new site in Canada, Spain and Eastern Europe, but Britain is regarded as the front-runner, Eric Falcand, the chief executive officer of Servier Laboratories, the group’s UK subsidiary, said.

He said that Britain’s strong tradition of medical research and life sciences, language, proximity to France and support from the Department of Trade and Industry had given it a clear edge. The Home Office’s recent success in clamping down on animal rights extremism was also a factor, a spokesman noted.

In 2004 the Home Office introduced new laws to target campaigners who use terror tactics against scientists. The legislation tightened up harassment laws and made it a criminal offence to protest outside someone’s house in an intimidating manner.

Simon Best, the chairman of the BioIndustry Association, said: “There has been a marked increase in investment in UK R&D facilities by foreign companies over the past year. This is a tangible demonstration of the impact of the new legislation offering specific protection against animal rights extremists, and the changing climate for animal research in the UK.”

Dr Falcand said that the new site would create hundreds of research jobs and, possibly, several thousand later, depending on the success of the programme, which will focus on cardiovascular and oncological treatments.

The facility probably would be built in the M4 corridor close to Slough, Berkshire, where Servier UK has its headquarters.

Dr Falcand said that Servier wanted to become one of the top ten drug companies in the UK by 2010. At present it employs about 700 people and is expanding by about 30 per cent a year.

Servier was founded in 1954 by Jacques Servier, a chemist from Orléans. The group is a significant player in the Eastern European and South-East Asian pharmaceutical markets. Its top-selling products include Protelos, for osteoporosis, and Coversyl, for the treatment of high blood pressure. Servier’s sales to the NHS are worth about £100 million a year.

Two years ago the ownership structure of the company was changed to a foundation. The change included special statutes to ensure that the group could never be sold to another company.

£3.2bn: Pharmaceutical research and development spending in the UK in 2004