AstraZeneca plans to spend $50 billion to increase manufacturing and analysis capabilities within the U.S. by 2030, it mentioned on Monday, the newest large funding by a pharmaceutical firm reacting to President Donald Trump’s tariff coverage.
The funding will fund a brand new drug manufacturing facility in Virginia and increase analysis and improvement (R&D) and cell remedy manufacturing in Maryland, Massachusetts, California, Indiana and Texas, it mentioned in a press release.
It is going to additionally improve the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker’s U.S. medical trial provide community and assist ongoing funding in novel medicines.
On Monday, AstraZeneca mentioned the growth helps its ambition to achieve $80 billion in annual income by 2030, with half coming from the U.S.
The U.S. accounted for greater than 40% of AstraZeneca’s annual income in 2024, and the corporate had been prioritising the market — the world’s largest, price $635 billion — earlier than Trump’s return to workplace.
The transfer to scale up its U.S. footprint is the newest by a drugmaker as Trump threatens to impose import tariffs on the business and seeks to spice up home manufacturing. The sector has traditionally been spared from commerce disputes.
Trump has known as on pharma firms to make extra of the medicines they promote within the U.S. inside the nation, reasonably than importing energetic elements or completed medicines. He’s additionally pushing for costs within the U.S. to fall to what different international locations pay.
CEO Pascal Soriot introduced the plans in Washington, saying he believes that drug costs must rise elsewhere and “equalize” with different international locations successfully contributing extra to analysis and improvement prices. “The US can’t construct or carry the price of R&D for the whole world,” he mentioned.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s division is main a probe into pharmaceutical imports that would pave the best way for brand spanking new tariffs.
“For many years Individuals have been reliant on international provide of key pharmaceutical merchandise. President Trump and our nation’s new tariff insurance policies are targeted on ending this structural weak spot,” mentioned Lutnick in a press release issued by AstraZeneca.
Whereas Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs on the sector, he signalled earlier this month that firms could be given a yr to 18 months to “get their act collectively” earlier than any levies take impact.
The corporate mentioned that the timing and site of the announcement was linked to the U.S. coverage setting, although among the spending would have occurred regardless in order that the infrastructure for future medicines was in place.
The pledge is along with the $3.5 billion in investments the corporate introduced in November 2024, the assertion mentioned.
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The $50 billion pledge matches the dedication introduced by Swiss rival Roche in April and follows new spending plans unveiled this yr by Eli Lilly & Co, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and Sanofi.
Additionally current on the announcement was Virginia State Governor Glenn Youngkin, a vocal Trump ally who has defended the administration’s tariff insurance policies.
The brand new Virginia facility — the corporate’s largest single manufacturing funding — will produce energetic elements for AstraZeneca’s experimental weight-loss medicines, together with its oral GLP-1 candidate and an oral PCSK9 inhibitor for ldl cholesterol administration, it mentioned.
The corporate mentioned the funding may create tens of hundreds of latest jobs, however declined to provide specifics. It employs about 18,000 individuals within the U.S. and has a worldwide workforce of about 90,000.
In January it scrapped plans to speculate 450 million kilos ($607.1 million) in its vaccine manufacturing plant in northern England, citing a reduce in authorities assist.
Earlier this month, The Occasions reported the corporate was contemplating shifting its inventory market itemizing from London, the place it’s the alternate’s most respected firm price 159 billion kilos, to the U.S. The corporate declined to remark.
($1 = 0.7415 pound)
—Ahmed Aboulenein and Maggie Fick, Reuters
