‘Very unattractive’ Britain leaves drugmaker AstraZeneca eyeing China as the next big growth region

The boss of drugmaker AstraZeneca blasted high taxes in the UK as he touted China as the next big growth region – declaring the country ‘completely open’ to foreign firms.

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of the FTSE 100 group, said Britain was ‘very unattractive for companies to invest’ and warned it was difficult for pharma firms to establish manufacturing bases in Britain.

The comments came as he said Astra ‘definitely could make acquisitions’ in China, a country where it has signed several licensing partnerships.

Soriot, who has just spent two weeks there, said China has seen an ‘explosion of biotech companies’ working on new medicines and there was no pressure from jurisdictions such as Europe and the US to discourage it from making investments there.

‘There is no limitation to this,’ Soriot said. It came as the Anglo-Swedish firm posted better-than-expected results for the first three months of this year. 

Revenue dipped 4 per cent year-on-year to £8.7billion, weighed down by a 98 per cent drop in sales of Covid vaccine vaxzevria to £22.5million.

And revenues from evusheld, its antibody treatment for the virus, plunged 73 per cent to £102million after US regulators removed its use authorisation because it proved ineffective at combating sub-variants of the virus.

But there was a 19 per cent jump in cancer drug sales. Excluding Covid remedies, total sales were up 10 per cent at £8.6billion. 

The group also maintained its guidance for the full year, predicting revenue growth of a ‘low-to-mid single-digit percentage’ for 2023.

The results came ahead of its annual general meeting, at which Soriot swatted away a challenge to his leadership by shareholder advisory firm Pirc, which wanted his removal amid concerns over mounting legal battles which it said ‘could financially or reputationally impact the company’. 

Shares fell 0.4 per cent, or 48p, to 11,796p.