By Andrew MacAskill and Maggie Fick
Beijing/London — UK drugmaker AstraZeneca will invest $15bn in China until 2030 to expand medicines manufacturing and research & 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 US, led by a $50bn 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.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said it will be 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 $2.5bn in a Beijing research & 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 will bolster its capabilities in new therapeutic approaches like cell therapy and radioconjugates, where it said China is a recognised leader.
Building on its 2024 acquisition of Gracell Biotechnologies, AstraZeneca said it will become the first global biopharmaceutical company with end-to-end cell therapy capabilities in China.
The investment will 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.
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 CFO, Aradhana Sarin, said in November that growth in China had been “strong throughout the year”.
Some rival drugmakers have sold off Chinese assets after supply chain disruptions, an economic slowdown and strong competition in the country’s centralised drug procurement programme.
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