AstraZeneca announces 'major' UK investment

Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has said it will invest £300m into UK drugs development in what the prime minister has described as a "major vote of confidence" in the country.

Sir Keir Starmer said the money would "futureproof thousands of jobs" at the campuses in Cambridge and Macclesfield in Cheshire.

The announcement marks a change of direction for the company, having last year paused plans to invest £200m in the Cambridge research site, and scrapped the investment of £450m in a Merseyside vaccine plant.

Sir Keir said the new investment was made possible thanks to the "pharmaceutical arrangement we have struck with the United States".

"That is a major vote of confidence in the UK and Labour's plans to strengthen our economy," he said, speaking at Prime Minister's Questions.

AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot said the company would finish the construction of the Rosalind Franklin building at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

He said the investment for Macclesfield meant "a lab of the future that will use digital and data tools to advance drug development".

"And we look forward to further enhancing the access and the reimbursement environment and [to] build a strong life sciences sector," said Soriot.

Richard Torbett, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said he had witnessed a "remarkable month for UK life sciences" and for "the patients who ultimately benefit".

He pointed to the announcement by German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim, which has said it will build a centre for artificial intelligence and machine learning at King's Cross in London.

Over the last 10 years, UK spending on medicines had fallen from 15% of the NHS budget to 9%.

The rest of the developed world spends between 14% and 20%.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have been looking to invest in the US following US President Donald Trump's threats of sky-high tariffs on drug imports.

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