For sale: home of Viagra renamed "Discovery Park"

LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - Pfizer's (PFE.N) giant research base at Sandwich, southern England, has been officially put on the market by CB Richard Ellis (CBG.N) following the U.S. drugmaker's decision in February to close the site.

The world's largest commercial real estate services firm said on Tuesday it would market the 3 million square feet site, where the anti-impotence pill Viagra was invented, under the new name "Discovery Park".

The name reflects the hope at least some of the buildings at the facility, which employs 2,400 people, will continue to be used for research work.

Sandwich is Pfizer's biggest R&D facility in Europe and the largest R&D site of any foreign-owned drugmaker in Britain. It has been a base for medicine discovery for the world's biggest drugmaker since 1954.

Finding new tenants interested in continuing the site's work in pharmaceutical research is unlikely to be easy, given over-capacity in drug R&D worldwide that has led to a number of similar closures by other companies. [ID:nLDE71O1LW] (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Holmes)