AstraZeneca’s ambitious growth target to boost Ireland and the UK
By Chris Wheal
May 23, 2024
Half the employees at AstraZeneca's Cambridge Discovery Centre work in R&D
AstraZeneca’s ambitious plans to hit $80bn of revenue by 2030, with sustained growth after that, made the news this week and its Dublin expansion was a named item.
The headline-grabbing figures included a target for mid-30s% core operating margin by 2026. The company made clear R&D would be at the heart of its growth plans. R&D annual investment was $10.3bn in 2023 and AZ said it would remain above 20% of total revenue. Of the firm’s 89,900 worldwide employees, more than 13,000 work in R&D.
The company reported that there would be $20bn of potential revenue in 2030 from 2024/25 launches and phase III readouts. It said there are 178 pipeline projects, of which 160 are in the clinical phase of development.
AstraZeneca in Ireland
AstraZeneca in Ireland, including rare diseases expert Alexion, employs more than 1,200 people across two sites, in Dublin and Athlone. It provides medicines to Irish patients in:
- Rare diseases
- Oncology
- Cardiovascular
- Renal and metabolism
- Vaccines and immune therapies
- Respiratory and immunology.
AstraZeneca’s Irish office told PharmLifeSicence; “At the site in Dublin, Alexion operates a large-scale drug substance facility to manufacture orphan drugs, alongside laboratories, warehousing, a packaging centre and several global roles to support our commercial and pipeline products. In Athlone, the site manufactures and fills many of Alexion’s current products, while preparing for future product candidates.”
In September 2021, AstraZeneca announced a $360m investment to establish a next-generation active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) commercialisation plant at College Park, Dublin. Construction started in July 2023. The company flagged this in its presentation to analysts at its investor day on Tuesday.
“The new plant will allow for late-stage development and early commercial supply, adopting state-of-the-art process technology and digital innovation that is designed to meet the needs of the company’s new medicines pipeline with speed and agility,” the company told PharmaLifeScience.
AstraZeneca in the UK
With R&D high on the agenda, the UK looks set to benefit too. Two of the company’s top 10 R&D facilities are in the UK.
Top 10 R&D centres
- Gaithersburg, US
- Boston, US
- Cambridge, UK (HQ)
- Gothenburg, Sweden
- Shanghai, China
- San Francisco, US
- Santa Monica, US
- New Haven, US
- Macclesfield, UK
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cambridge
The Cambridge site houses the AstraZeneca Discovery Centre, which was officially opened in 2021. Of the 4,000 or so employees based in Cambridge, more than half are researchers and scientists working across all therapy areas and drug discovery platforms.
The site alone has more than 130 active collaborations under way, including 165 PhD and 45 post-doctoral programmes plus 20 active grants.
Macclesfield
Macclesfield is the second largest manufacturing site in the AstraZeneca network and the European centre for packing. This site is home to 4,700 employees, who manufacture, pack and distribute 25 commercial medicines and nine clinical medicines to 117 global markets.
Although a big focus at Macclesfield is on supply chain thinking, it also houses the company’s IT function and AstraZeneca’s Pharmaceutical Development and Global Medicines Development facilities.
The company says: “Macclesfield is immersed in the UK science and innovation ecosystem, with major investments for Centres for Doctoral Training totalling £100-500m. This site is also where we train many of the next generation of AstraZeneca leaders, with 153 apprenticeships across the site and 17 campus ambassadors. Our work in this space has led us to be named fourth in the UK’s Top 300 Graduate Employers survey for 2022.”
AZ says its UK exports are worth about £9bn, equivalent to 1.4% of all UK exports.
What are your company’s plans for 2030? Let us know.
.png)