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Astrazeneca will inject £650m into Britain’s world-leading pharmaceutical industry in a major boost to the economy.
The FTSE 100 group will invest £450m in the research, development and manufacturing of new vaccines at its plant in Speke, Liverpool.
The pharmaceutical giant, which developed a Covid vaccine with Oxford University, will also spend £200m expanding Europe’s largest life sciences group in Cambridge.
The plans were announced yesterday by Jeremy Hunt, when he referred to AstraZeneca’s French boss Sir Pascal Soriot as “mon ami” – or “my friend”.
Praising “more investment and better jobs in every corner of the country”, the Chancellor said: “AstraZeneca’s investment plans are a vote of confidence in the UK’s attractiveness as a life sciences superpower and strengthen our resilience to future emergencies. sanitary”.
Mon ami: Astrazeneca boss Pascal Soriot will invest £450m in the research, development and manufacturing of new vaccines at its plant in Speke, Liverpool.
The investment suggests Soriot’s faith in Britain has been restored after he last February called the UK a “very unattractive” place to do business.
He pointed to Astra’s decision to build a factory in Ireland rather than the UK as evidence that Britain is becoming less attractive.
But last month Soriot told the Mail: “The current environment in the UK for life sciences is different to what it was almost a year ago.”
And yesterday he said the planned investment will “improve the UK’s pandemic preparedness and demonstrates our confidence in UK life sciences”.
Astra already develops vaccines for children at Speke, while the investment in Cambridge will support 1,000 jobs at a facility alongside its £1.1bn global research and development center which is home to 2,300 researchers and scientists.
It is also opening a manufacturing site for one of its cancer drugs in Macclesfield this year following the announcement of a £380m investment in 2021. Soriot, 64, is credited with turning around the drugmaker’s fortunes listed in London.
Since he took the reins in 2012, the company’s stock has more than tripled.
And he oversaw the development of the company’s Covid vaccine that allowed lockdowns to be lifted during the pandemic.
The company more than doubled its annual profits last year thanks to strong sales of its cancer treatments.
Profits reached £5.5bn in 2023, up from £1.9bn the previous year, while sales rose 3 per cent to £36.3bn.
The group said its revenue and profits this year would be boosted by its blockbuster oncology drugs.
And this excellent performance has been personally lucrative for Soriot, who landed his biggest pay deal last year, earning £16.9m, the fifth year in a row he has taken home more than £15m.
This took his total earnings to £135 million during his 12 years in office.