AstraZeneca overtakes Pfizer as crunch week for UK pharma looms
Nearly a decade after AstraZeneca fended off a hostile takeover approach from US rival Pfizer, the British drug firm has overtaken the Viagra maker in terms of market value, marking a significant moment in its turnaround – and for UK plc.
In a week when AstraZeneca and Britain’s second-biggest pharma firm GSK release their latest quarterly results and the main industry body, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry holds its annual conference, all eyes will be on what pharma executives say about the UK as a place to operate and invest in.
GSK’s chief executive, Emma Walmsley, recently said that life sciences were at a “tipping point,” saying the UK needed to reverse the decline in clinical trials, speed up approvals of new drugs and deploy the latest medicines more quickly.
Her counterpart at AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, also took a shot at the business climate, saying less favourable tax rates had prompted the firm to build a new factory in Ireland rather than the UK. The industry is locked in a battle with the government over the soaring rebates it pays to the National Health Service, which are designed to limit the NHS’s medicines bill.
Soriot has completely rebuilt AstraZeneca’s drug portfolio in recent years, including the lung cancer drug Tagrisso, leukaemia drug Calquence and Farxiga for diabetes. GSK is also in the process of revamping its pipeline, and has become a more focused pharma and vaccines business after the spin-off of its consumer arm Haleon last summer.
After positive results in clinical trials across cancer, metabolic and rare disease treatments, AstraZeneca’s share price has risen 19% in the past year and 140% in the last five years, valuing the company at nearly £189bn. This compares with
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