Drug R&D
With high hopes for the economy, AstraZeneca adds $2B to US investment in manufacturing, R&D
Citing a rosy view of the U.S. economy’s potential for growth over the next several years, British Big Pharma AstraZeneca is substantially boosting its investment in manufacturing and R&D in the country.
AstraZeneca on Tuesday revealed that it’s adding $2 billion more to its current outlay in the U.S., representing a total capital investment of $3.5 billion. The cash will be used to grow the company’s research and production footprint in the States by the end of 2026, generating more than 1,000 new jobs along the way, AZ said in a release issued Tuesday morning.
Chief among AZ’s U.S. manufacturing projects are the construction of a next-generation biologics plant in Maryland, a cell therapy capacity expansion on both the East and West Coast and the buildout of specialty manufacturing capabilities in Texas.
Aside from manufacturing, the company’s upgraded investment will also bolster AZ’s efforts to set up an R&D center in Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Kendall Square. Full details of how much of the cash injection will go, and where, and timelines for completion were not given in the brief release.
“This is a plan that we’ve been working on for a number of years,” AZ CEO Pascal Soriot said of the U.S. investment during its earnings call to the media Tuesday. “We accelerated it in the recent past because we’re very confident in the future growth of the economy in the United States.”
As it stands, AZ employs roughly 17,800 employees across 17 R&D, manufacturing and commercial sites in 12 U.S. states.
Despite the investment update, many of the projects AstraZeneca outlined are, in fact, not exactly new. For instance, the company announced plans for its cell therapy facility in Rockville, Maryland back in February. Elsewhere, the company blueprinted its Kendall Square R&D center all the way back in 2022. The facility, which AZ expects to complete in 2026, will serve as both a strategic R&D hub and the corporate headquarters for the British pharma’s rare disease subsidiary Alexion.
AZ’s U.S. manufacturing efforts form part of the drugmaker’s plan to separate its U.S. and China supply chains amid an increasingly tense geopolitical climate.
