AstraZeneca invests £300 million in UK in boost for Starmer

Published Thu, Apr 30, 2026 · 07:08 PM

[LONDON] AstraZeneca will invest £300 million (S$517.8 million) in UK life sciences, an unexpected show of confidence in its home country after previously warning the pharmaceutical industry there risks stagnating.

The investment includes a new building at the British drugmaker’s headquarters in Cambridge, and a new laboratory at Astra’s manufacturing hub in Macclesfield, chief executive officer Pascal Soriot said on Wednesday (Apr 29). In Parliament, Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed what he called a “major vote of confidence” in the government’s economic plans.

The move represents a significant change in stance for the drugmaker after it paused a £200 million expansion of its headquarters last year. Soriot has complained about the UK’s regulatory regime for new drugs, and has repeatedly warned that the country is falling behind the US and China in life sciences.

That was politically damaging for Starmer and the Labour government, especially as AstraZeneca was far from alone in its criticism. US drugmaker Merck & Co also pulled out of plans for a £1 billion research hub.

In response, the UK last year agreed to boost spending on medicines by 25 per cent, by lifting the threshold used to determine if a drug is cost-effective in the state-run National Health Service.

Both Starmer and Soriot also cited the significance of the UK’s trade deal with the US, after President Donald Trump’s pushed for other countries to pay more for new medicines. That helped spur the UK to increase drug spending.

“What the government in the UK is doing is moving in the right direction, and discussions are going to happen between European governments and the US government of similar nature,” Soriot told reporters on a post-earnings call.

Still, Soriot said the UK and Europe must do more to remain attractive for companies. Trump’s push to level the playing field with the US, where drugmakers have typically charged far more for medicines than in other countries, has resulted in some drugs not being launched in Europe.

Soriot said he was afraid that if nothing changes in Europe, the region will “lose investment in R&D, lose access, and also of course over time lose investment in manufacturing.” The danger, Soriot said, is that medicines may end up being sourced only from the US and China. BLOOMBERG