AstraZeneca

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  AstraZeneca, the Swedish-British drugmaker, turned down a final offer from Pfizer on the 19th of May 2014. The bid was 55 pounds a share. That valued the company at 69.4 billion pounds, or about 117 billion US dollars.

  The two companies had been meeting since January of that year. Had the deal gone ahead, Pfizer would have become the biggest drug maker in the world. It would also have been the largest foreign takeover of a British company. Politicians and scientists across Britain had spoken against it.

  How does a company become a prize worth that much? What did its founders build, and what did it later buy? And which of its drugs, lawsuits and contracts drew criticism on the way?

  39713

• 2. Doctors and Chemists

  ›

  In 1913, 400 doctors and apothecaries in Södertälje, Sweden, founded a company called Astra AB. Over the twentieth century it grew into the largest pharmaceutical company in Sweden. In 1939 it acquired a business called Tika.

  The British half of the story began inside ICI, a chemicals group that had itself been assembled from four British chemical companies. In 1993, ICI split off its pharmaceuticals business. The same demerger carried its agrochemicals and specialities businesses. Together they became Zeneca Group PLC.

  Six years later, in 1999, Astra and Zeneca merged to form AstraZeneca plc. Zeneca shareholders received 53.5% of the new company's shares. Astra shareholders received the remaining 46.5%. Despite the Swedish half of the name, the headquarters went to London. For its American base, the company picked a location it called the Fairfax-plus site, in North Wilmington, Delaware.

  Today the main listing is on the London Stock Exchange, where the company sits in the FTSE 100 Index. Secondary listings are in Stockholm and New York. The new company's first headline drug news came in September 2002, when Iressa, a lung cancer treatment, won approval in Japan.

  914151610

• 3. The Patent Cliff

  ›

  In December 2005, AstraZeneca paid 120 million pounds for KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, a British biotech company. In May 2006 it bought Cambridge Antibody Technology for 702 million pounds. The two firms had been collaborating since 2004.

  February 2007 brought a purchase of Arrow Therapeutics for 150 million US dollars. Arrow worked on anti-viral therapies. Two months later, analysts were openly discussing AstraZeneca's pipeline and its so-called patent cliff. That phrase describes the risk that big-selling drugs lose their patent protection and their revenue.

  The answer arrived a few days later. AstraZeneca bought the American company MedImmune for about 15.2 billion US dollars. The prize was a set of flu vaccines and an anti-viral treatment for infants. The company then gathered all its biologics work into one division and gave it the MedImmune name.

  December 2009 added Novexel Corp, an antibiotics discovery company formed in 2004 as a spin-off from the anti-infectives division of Sanofi-Aventis. Through that deal AstraZeneca gained an experimental antibiotic known as NXL-104. In December 2011 it acquired Guangdong BeiKang Pharmaceutical Company, a Chinese generics business.

  In February 2012, AstraZeneca and Amgen announced a joint effort on treatments for inflammatory diseases. April brought the purchase of Ardea Biosciences for 1.26 billion US dollars. In June, AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb announced a two-stage plan for Amylin Pharmaceuticals. Bristol Myers Squibb would buy Amylin for 5.3 billion dollars in cash, plus 1.7 billion dollars of assumed debt. AstraZeneca would then pay Bristol Myers Squibb 3.4 billion dollars in cash. Amylin would join an existing diabetes venture between the two.

  Leadership changed in the same months. On the 26th of April 2012, the company announced that chief executive David Brennan would retire in early June. In 2008, Brennan had been paid 1,574,144 US dollars. Leif Johansson succeeded Louis Schweitzer as non-executive chairman on the 1st of June, three months earlier than first announced. That August, Pascal Soriot was named as the new chief executive.

  1820212330

• 4. One Molecule Twice

  ›

  In March 2001, AstraZeneca began selling Nexium, and it marketed the drug as if it were entirely new. Nexium, whose chemical name is esomeprazole, became the company's most commercially successful medication. It treats acid reflux, erosive esophagitis, duodenal ulcers linked to Helicobacter pylori, and ulcers in people on long-term NSAID therapy. It is also used for gastrointestinal ulcers tied to Crohn's disease.

  The story starts with omeprazole, an earlier drug. Made in the laboratory, omeprazole comes out as a mixture of two mirror-image molecules, called R and S. Two years before the omeprazole patent ran out, AstraZeneca patented the S form on its own. The company argued that some people break down the R form slowly. A pure S drug, it said, would work at a more efficient dose and vary less from person to person.

  The chemistry behind that argument is specific. The enzyme CYP2C19 is the only route by which the body processes the R form. About 3% of the population produces very little of that enzyme. On a normal dose of the mixture, those people end up with blood levels five times higher than everyone else. Esomeprazole is handled by two enzymes, CYP2C19 and CYP3A4, so exposure varies less.

  Doses differed too. Omeprazole was approved for reflux at up to 20 mg, while esomeprazole was approved at up to 40 mg. That gap became the heart of a criticism voiced in 2007 by Marcia Angell, a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. Speaking to the German weekly Stern, she said the company's scientists had stacked the comparison. In her words: "Instead of using presumably comparable doses of each drug, the company's scientists used Nexium in higher dosages. They compared 20 and 40 mg Nexium with 20 mg Prilosec. With the cards having been marked in that way, Nexium looked like an improvement , which however was only small and shown in only two of the three studies."

  1820212330

• 5. Rebuilding Around Cambridge

  ›

  In March 2013, Soriot's company announced its biggest reorganisation in years. Research would end at Alderley Park in Cheshire, at Loughborough in the UK and at Lund in Sweden. A new research facility costing 500 million US dollars would rise in Cambridge. Work would concentrate in three places. Cambridge and Gaithersburg, Maryland, the home of MedImmune, would handle biotech drugs. Gothenburg would handle traditional chemical drugs.

  The headquarters would move from London to Cambridge in 2016. The announcement included 1,600 job cuts, and three days later the company added another 2,300. It also narrowed its focus to three areas: respiratory inflammation and autoimmunity, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and oncology.

  The Cambridge headquarters, called the Discovery Centre, stands on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus beside Addenbrooke's Hospital. The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron designed it, and Prince Charles opened it on the 23rd of November 2021. It holds more than 2,200 scientists in 16 laboratories across roughly 19000 square metres. The cost was about 1 billion pounds. In September 2025 the building was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize.

  A more unusual link joined Cambridge to Gothenburg. On the 2nd of March 2015, a direct air route between the two cities began flying. The company reserved 20 of the 32 seats on each flight. SUN-AIR operated the service for British Airways, four days a week, so staff could travel for meetings and return the same day. The route stopped as a scheduled public service in 2016 because too few passengers used it. Flights for company employees were still running in 2024.

  In July 2017, Soriot said Brexit would not change the company's commitment to its UK plans. He admitted it had slowed decisions on new investment while the post-Brexit rules were unclear. Two months later, chairman Leif Johansson said the company would take "first steps" toward moving research and manufacturing out of the UK if a hard Brexit came. Executive vice president Pam Cheng added that a duplicate quality-assurance testing facility was being started in Sweden, and hiring there had begun.

  Later friction followed. In January 2025, the company withdrew plans to expand its vaccine manufacturing site in Liverpool. In March 2025 it told a UK parliamentary committee that an offer of 75 million pounds in government support, made in October, had not sufficiently backed its revised business case and timeline. The research map also grew. Beyond Cambridge, Gaithersburg and Mölndal in Gothenburg, it now includes Warsaw in Poland, and a cell therapy plant opened in Rockville, Maryland, in 2025. In July 2025, the company announced it would invest 50 billion US dollars in the United States by 2030.

  3233344863

• 6. Cancer Bets

  ›

  In December 2014, the US regulator gave accelerated approval to olaparib for women with advanced ovarian cancer who carry a BRCA genetic mutation. A key test for approval was how long the drug shrank tumours. The average was 7.9 months.

  Not every cancer drug succeeded. In April 2015, tremelimumab received orphan drug status in the United States for mesothelioma. By February 2016, a clinical trial of the drug had missed its main goal.

  The deals of 2015 were enormous. In April, a set of collaborations worth an estimated 1.8 billion US dollars paired an experimental immunotherapy called MEDI4736 with partners including Celgene and Innate Pharma. On the 6th of November, AstraZeneca acquired ZS Pharma for 2.7 billion US dollars. In December it took a 55% stake in Acerta for 4 billion US dollars, gaining rights to the cancer drug candidate acalabrutinib. That year, the company ranked eighth among the world's drug companies by sales. In 2017 it ranked eleventh by sales and seventh by research investment.

  In February 2018, six early-stage experimental drugs were moved into a new company, Viela Bio, valued at 250 million US dollars. On the 6th of December 2018, AstraZeneca bought nearly 8% of the American company Moderna. In March 2019 it agreed to pay up to 6.9 billion US dollars to work with Daiichi Sankyo on trastuzumab deruxtecan, a breast cancer treatment. Funding came partly from a 3.5 billion dollar share issue, and Daiichi's shares jumped 16%. A second Daiichi collaboration, on an antibody drug conjugate called DS-1062, followed in July 2020 and was worth up to 6 billion dollars to Daiichi.

  In July 2021, AstraZeneca acquired Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Through Alexion, it bought Caelum Biosciences that October, adding a treatment for light chain amyloidosis for up to 500 million dollars. In 2022 came TeneoTwo, for up to 1.3 billion dollars, along with LogicBio Therapeutics and the Amsterdam company Neogene Therapeutics. CinCor Pharma followed in January 2023 at 1.8 billion dollars.

  In November 2023, the company launched Evinova, a health tech business that helps design, run and monitor clinical trials. December brought two more agreements: Icosavax, an RSV vaccine developer, for 1.1 billion dollars, and Gracell Biotechnologies for up to 1.2 billion dollars. Both closed in February 2024. March 2024 added Amolyt Pharma for 1.05 billion dollars and Fusion Pharmaceuticals for 2 billion dollars in cash. In 2025 the company announced it would pay up to 1 billion dollars for the Belgian company EsoBiotec. In January 2026 came Modella AI, a Boston artificial intelligence company, with terms undisclosed.

  On the 20th of January 2026, Walmart replaced AstraZeneca in the Nasdaq-100 index. The company also announced that its American depositary receipts would leave Nasdaq on the 30th of January. Ordinary shares would list directly on the New York Stock Exchange starting the 2nd of February.

  4459616984

• 7. The Vaccine Years

  ›

  In June 2020, AstraZeneca made a preliminary approach to Gilead Sciences about a merger worth almost 240 billion US dollars. The plan was dropped. Executives judged it would pull attention from the company's own pipeline and its COVID-19 vaccine work.

  On the 27th of December 2020, Soriot said the company had "figured out the winning formula" for a two-dose schedule of the vaccine it developed with Oxford University. Three days later, the United Kingdom approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use.

  A dispute with the European Union soon followed. In August 2020, AstraZeneca signed an advance purchase agreement with the European Commission and member states. In clause 13.1, the company promised that it had no other obligation that conflicted with the deal in any material way. In March 2021, British health secretary Matt Hancock said the UK had been given "exclusivity" and called the EU's agreement "inferior".

  The contracts themselves were close to identical. The UK deal was signed on the 28th of August 2020, one day after the EU's, and both used the phrase "best reasonable efforts". The real difference was earlier. In May 2020, AstraZeneca had struck a preliminary agreement with the UK to build a dedicated supply chain for that country.

  The European Commission made its own mistake. In November 2020 the Pfizer-BioNTech makers offered the EU 500 million doses. The Commission believed it already had enough vaccine and ordered only 200 million. When AstraZeneca then failed to deliver anticipated quantities, vulnerable groups in the EU stayed poorly vaccinated as more dangerous variants of SARS-CoV-2 appeared in early 2021.

  75808245

• 8. Courtrooms and Investigations

  ›

  On the 4th of February 1998, Astra USA sued Lars Bildman, its former president and chief executive, for 15 million US dollars. The sum included 2.3 million dollars of company money he allegedly spent renovating three of his homes. The suit also alleged sexual harassment of employees, spending on yachts and destruction of records. Bildman had already pleaded guilty to failing to report over 1 million dollars in income. In April 1998 he was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

  An investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began in May 1996. The agency interviewed 120 former female employees, and about 80 could file claims. In February 1998, Astra U.S.A. agreed to a 10 million dollar settlement and apologised for the hostile work environment. In 2009, a Massachusetts court ruled in Astra USA v. Bildman that he must forfeit "all of his salary and bonuses for the period of disloyalty". The ruling applied New York's faithless servant doctrine, and legal commentators paid it close attention.

  In April 2010, AstraZeneca paid 520 million US dollars to settle a whistleblower suit filed by Stefan P. Kruszewski over Seroquel, an antipsychotic. The claims said the company marketed it illegally to doctors who rarely treat schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, including those serving the elderly, children, nursing homes and prisons. In March 2011 it settled a separate lawsuit for 68.5 million dollars, divided among up to 38 states.

  A Seroquel trial also raised ethical questions. In 2004, Dan Markingson took his own life while enrolled in the CAFE study at the University of Minnesota. Bioethics professor Carl Elliott noted that Markingson joined the trial against the wishes of his mother, Mary Weiss. Elliott said he had to choose between the study and involuntary commitment. A 2005 FDA investigation cleared the university, yet the controversy continued after a Mother Jones article.

  In February 2010, the company agreed to pay 505 million pounds to settle a UK tax dispute over transfer mispricing. In February 2024, governance experts and investors criticised the chief executive's pay as excessive. In July 2024, Britain's NICE blocked NHS use of Enhertu for advanced HER2-low breast cancer because AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo would not lower the price. A course cost 117,857 pounds, and trials showed five extra months of life compared with chemotherapy.

  In China, the company's reputation suffered after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. A corporate rule barred foreign subsidiaries from donating to local governments, and the Chinese arm read it as blocking earthquake relief. Approval came, but only after a long delay. Later, during the early 2020s, AstraZeneca signed licensing agreements with nine Chinese biotech firms, collectively valued at 6.5 billion dollars. In May 2023, China president Leon Wang said the company aimed to be "patriotic" and that it "loves the Communist Party". On the 30th of October 2024, the company said Wang was under investigation and detained. Michael Lai now runs the business. In November 2024, investigators widened the probe. Former employees were accused of falsifying genetic tests to win reimbursement for the lung cancer drug Tagrisso, and executives faced questions on data privacy and cancer drug imports from Hong Kong.

  After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, AstraZeneca was criticised for keeping its operations running there despite a promise to halt new investment. While other firms suspended new studies, it pressed ahead with a trial of a new COVID-19 prevention drug, a study it needed to register that drug in Russia.

  1001622