AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca plc is a Swedish-British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company headquartered at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. Its portfolio covers oncology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory and inflammation.
| AstraZeneca plc | |
|---|---|
| Type | Public |
| Traded as | LSE: AZN, Nasdaq Stockholm, NYSE: AZN |
| Industry | Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology |
| Founded | 1999, by merger of Astra AB and Zeneca Group |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, England, United Kingdom |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Pascal Soriot (CEO) |
| Products | Oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory and immunology medicines |
| Services | Pharmaceutical research and development |
| Subsidiaries | MedImmune, Alexion Pharmaceuticals |
| Website | astrazeneca.com |
The company was formed in 1999 through the merger of the Swedish Astra AB and the British Zeneca Group, itself created by the demerger of the pharmaceutical operations of Imperial Chemical Industries in 1993. Zeneca shareholders received 53.5 per cent of the combined company and Astra shareholders 46.5 per cent.
AstraZeneca has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100, with secondary listings on Nasdaq Stockholm and the New York Stock Exchange. It has one of the highest market capitalisations of any pharmaceutical company in the world. Research and development is concentrated in three strategic centres: Cambridge in England, Gothenburg in Sweden and Gaithersburg, Maryland in the United States.
History
Origins
Astra AB was founded in 1913 in Södertälje, Sweden, by some 400 doctors and apothecaries, and grew during the twentieth century into the largest pharmaceutical company in Sweden.
Its British counterpart was created in 1993 when Imperial Chemical Industries demerged its pharmaceuticals and its agrochemicals and specialities businesses to form Zeneca Group plc. The two merged in 1999 to form AstraZeneca, with headquarters in London. The same year the company established its United States base at a site in North Wilmington, Delaware.
2000 to 2006
In September 2002 the drug Iressa, gefitinib, was approved in Japan as a monotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer. In December 2005 the company acquired the British biotechnology firm KuDOS Pharmaceuticals for 120 million pounds, a purchase that proved highly significant: KuDOS work on PARP inhibition led to olaparib, marketed as Lynparza, one of the company's most successful oncology products.
In May 2006, following a collaboration begun in 2004, AstraZeneca acquired Cambridge Antibody Technology for 702 million pounds.
The patent cliff, 2007 to 2012
In February 2007 the company agreed to buy Arrow Therapeutics, focused on antiviral therapies, for 150 million dollars. Its pipeline and impending patent expirations were the subject of considerable speculation in April 2007, prompting acquisition activity intended to replace revenue from products losing exclusivity.
Days later AstraZeneca acquired the American company MedImmune for approximately 15.2 billion dollars, gaining influenza vaccines and an antiviral treatment for infants, and subsequently consolidated all its biologics operations into a dedicated MedImmune division.
Further purchases followed: Novexel in December 2009, an antibiotics discovery company spun out of the Sanofi-Aventis anti-infectives division, which brought the experimental antibiotic that became ceftazidime-avibactam; Guangdong BeiKang Pharmaceutical, a Chinese generics business, in December 2011; and Ardea Biosciences for 1.26 billion dollars in April 2012. In February 2012 AstraZeneca and Amgen announced a collaboration on inflammatory disease treatments.
In June 2012 AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb announced a two-stage joint acquisition of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, under which Bristol Myers Squibb would buy Amylin for 5.3 billion dollars in cash plus 1.7 billion dollars of assumed debt, with AstraZeneca then paying 3.4 billion dollars and Amylin being folded into their existing diabetes joint venture.
Restructuring under Pascal Soriot
In March 2013 the company announced a major restructuring: the closure of research and development at Alderley Park in Cheshire, Loughborough and Lund in Sweden; a 500 million dollar investment in a new facility in Cambridge; and the concentration of research in Cambridge, Gaithersburg for biologics and Gothenburg for small molecules. It also announced that it would move its corporate headquarters from London to Cambridge in 2016.
The restructuring involved 1,600 job losses, followed three days later by a further 2,300. The company narrowed its focus to three therapeutic areas: respiratory, inflammation and autoimmunity; cardiovascular and metabolic disease; and oncology. In October 2013 it acquired the oncology biotechnology company Spirogen for around 440 million dollars.
The Pfizer approach
On 19 May 2014 AstraZeneca rejected what Pfizer described as a final offer of 55 pounds a share, valuing the company at 69.4 billion pounds, approximately 117 billion dollars. The companies had been in discussion since January.
Had the takeover proceeded, Pfizer would have become the largest pharmaceutical company in the world and the transaction would have been the largest foreign acquisition of a British company. It was opposed by many in Britain, including politicians and scientists, on the grounds that Pfizer's record suggested it would cut research spending and that the structure appeared designed principally to relocate Pfizer's tax domicile. The chief executive Pascal Soriot defended the rejection by committing publicly to revenue targets that were widely regarded as ambitious, and which the company subsequently exceeded.
In July 2014 AstraZeneca agreed a 2.1 billion dollar deal with Almirall for its respiratory subsidiary, including the COPD treatment Eklira, with 1.2 billion dollars allocated to development in the respiratory franchise. In August 2014 it entered a three-year collaboration with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma on diabetic nephropathy.
The company subsequently acquired Alexion Pharmaceuticals in 2021, adding a rare disease business, and built one of the strongest oncology pipelines in the industry, transforming its position from a company facing decline into one of the largest pharmaceutical groups by market capitalisation.
Controversies
COVID-19 vaccine
AstraZeneca developed a COVID-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford, distributed at no profit during the pandemic period and used more widely across low and middle income countries than any comparable product.
Its rollout was nonetheless contentious. Trial data released in November 2020 combined results from groups that had received different dosing regimens, one because of a manufacturing error, which drew criticism from regulators and scientists over the clarity of the evidence. In March 2021 a number of European countries suspended use following reports of rare blood clotting with low platelets, subsequently recognised as vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, a very rare condition that led several countries to restrict use by age group. The episode was widely criticised for the effect of inconsistent national decisions on public confidence.
A separate dispute with the European Commission concerned delivery shortfalls in early 2021, leading the Commission to begin legal proceedings over contractual obligations, which were settled in September 2021. In 2024 the company withdrew the vaccine from the market, citing a surplus of updated products, while litigation continued in the United Kingdom brought by claimants alleging injury.
Marketing of Seroquel
In 2010 AstraZeneca paid 520 million dollars to settle United States federal allegations that it had unlawfully marketed the antipsychotic Seroquel for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including in children, the elderly and patients with conditions for which it was not indicated. The company did not admit wrongdoing. It also paid substantial sums to settle personal injury claims relating to the drug's metabolic effects.
Nexium and product lifecycle management
The launch of esomeprazole, marketed as Nexium, as the patent on omeprazole expired became a widely cited example of evergreening, in which a modified form of an existing drug is promoted before generic competition arrives. Critics argued that the clinical advantage over the older product was marginal relative to the marketing expenditure and the cost to health systems. AstraZeneca maintained that the newer product offered genuine benefits for some patients.
Pricing and access
Like other large pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca has faced criticism over the pricing of oncology and rare disease medicines, particularly following the Alexion acquisition, which brought treatments among the most expensive in the world. The company points to tiered pricing, access programmes in lower income countries and the no-profit distribution of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Chinese operations
In 2024 several AstraZeneca employees in China were detained in connection with investigations into data handling and the importation of unlicensed medicines, and the company confirmed that its China president had been detained. AstraZeneca stated that it was cooperating with the authorities. China is one of its largest markets, and the proceedings drew attention to the compliance risks faced by multinational pharmaceutical companies operating there.
See also
References