After cancelling its £450m ($588m) vaccine expansion project at Liverpool’s Speke facility last week, AstraZeneca’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, has voiced his disappointment. Speaking to reporters, he said the drug maker’s investment required a higher level of economic support than the government felt was feasible. This had been previously agreed under a Conservative government which had pledged £90m of support. The project was subsequently cut after Labour came to power, with the intention of making savings. Soriot denied that there was any tension between AstraZeneca and the government and even confirmed that the company had been planning an investment of more than £500m in the Speke plant.
Soriot, however, encouraged the government to attract more investments, maintaining that increasing the drug rebate scheme would not encourage companies to invest, stating that this was an industry issue outside of the Speke cancellation. AstraZeneca has received “very substantial support” from Singapore for its antibody drug conjugates site, currently being built at the cost of $1.5bn, which will result in next-generation treatments for cancer patients.
Additionally, Soriot disclosed that the drug maker’s investigations in China were moving forward and that the company had updated investors. Earlier, AstraZeneca made headlines after detaining the president of its China business, as well as other senior executives, over allegations of illegally importing cancer medicines. This, in turn, had led to a dip in its share prices, with £14bn wiped off its market value, from a peak of over £200bn.
On the upside, AstraZeneca announced its profits for the year 2024, showing a 21% increase in revenues to $54.1bn. The company’s pre-tax profits went up by 38% to $8.7bn on a constant currency basis. As expected, its cancer and immunology treatments had experienced the fastest growth, with a 25% and 24% increase in revenue respectively. However, the company expects total sales growth to decelerate this year, to a single-digit percentage. Nonetheless, AstraZeneca has committed to not let it impact its $80bn revenue target by 2031. The company expects to announce testing for seven new medicines in the final stages this year to exceed that figure.
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