AstraZeneca sets out $15 billion China investment during Starmer visit

By Andrew MacAskill and Maggie Fick

BEIJING/LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – UK drugmaker AstraZeneca will invest $15 billion in China through 2030 to expand medicines manufacturing and research and development, it said on Thursday as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Beijing.  

The announcement marks the biggest deal so far during the trip, as Britain seeks to strengthen ties with Beijing at a time of strained relations with Washington.

Starmer cast the drugmaker’s investment as a boost for Britain. “AstraZeneca’s expansion and leadership in China will help the British manufacturer continue to grow – supporting thousands of UK jobs,” he said in a statement.

Even as AstraZeneca invests heavily in the United States, led by a $50 billion manufacturing deal last year, it continues to build its business in the second-biggest market after scandals including the arrest of its China president in 2024. 

BIGGEST INVESTMENT IN CHINA YET

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said it was the company’s largest investment in China, where it has operated for more than 30 years and is the biggest foreign drugmaker. China accounts for about 12% of its revenue.

AstraZeneca has invested billions of dollars in the country during Soriot’s tenure as CEO since 2012, including $2.5 billion in a Beijing research and development hub in March last year, its second after a Shanghai site opened in 2024.

The centres work with more than 500 hospitals across China and have helped run global clinical trials.

The drugmaker said the new deal would bolster its capabilities in new therapeutic approaches like cell therapy and radioconjugates, where it said China was a recognised leader.

Building on its 2024 acquisition of Gracell Biotechnologies, AstraZeneca said it would become the first global biopharmaceutical company with end-to-end cell therapy capabilities in China.

The investment would also help develop treatments for cancer, blood disorders and autoimmune diseases, the company said, and expand manufacturing sites in Wuxi, Taizhou, Qingdao and Beijing, which it said supply medicines in China and to 70 markets worldwide.

It will lift its China workforce to more than 20,000.

ASTRAZENECA PARTNERS CHINA’S BOOMING BIOTECH INDUSTRY

China’s growing role as a source of new drug assets has become a focus for the industry, executives said at the JPMorgan Healthcare conference earlier this month.

AstraZeneca has signed more than a dozen deals with Chinese biotech firms developing early-stage experimental drug candidates, including partnerships with AbelZeta, CSPC, Harbour BioMed, Jacobio and Syneron Bio.

AstraZeneca’s Chief Financial Officer Aradhana Sarin said in November that growth in China has been “strong throughout the year”.

Some rival drugmakers have sold off Chinese assets following supply chain disruptions, economic slowdown, and strong competition in the country’s centralised drug procurement programme.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill in Beijing and Maggie Fick in LondonAdditional reporting by Andrew Silver in ShanghaiEditing by Paul Sandle, Kirsten Donovan)