AstraZeneca has paused a 200 million pound sterling ($271 million) investment in its Cambridge, England, research site, a company spokesperson has confirmed to Fierce Biotech. The pharma's pullback is the latest in a string of industry retreats from the country that have been reported this week.
“We constantly reassess the investment needs of our company and can confirm our expansion in Cambridge is paused,” the AstraZeneca spokesperson said. “We have no further comment to make.”
The scrapped expansion was originally announced in March 2024 as part of a planned $882 million investment in the country that also included $610 million set aside for the British pharma’s vaccine R&D and manufacturing operations in Liverpool. That vaccine investment was canned in January, with AstraZeneca citing reduced funding from the U.K. government as the cause.
The $271 million was meant to fund a facility near AstraZeneca’s Cambridge headquarters that would have employed around 1,000 people, AZ said when the expansion was first announced.
The biopharma industry has issued a stunning rebuke of the U.K. this week, starting with Merck's plans to pull its R&D operations out of the country entirely, including canceling plans for a $1.31 billion R&D center in London. The New Jersey pharma giant blamed its decision on “the lack of investment in the life science industry and the overall undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines by successive U.K. governments.”
Eli Lilly has since followed Merck’s lead, pausing its plan for a British biotech lab space as it awaits “more clarity around the U.K. life sciences environment."
While this Big Pharma exodus may seem sudden, the U.K.’s life sciences industry has been lagging behind the rest of the world since 2018, according to a Sept. 10 report from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
In its report, the ABPI called on the British government to move fast to address the country’s “systemic weaknesses.” The call to action followed another urgent message from the ABPI the prior week, warning that the U.K. is at risk of undervaluing the benefits tied to investing in life sciences manufacturing.
The U.K. can at least rest easy that not every biopharma is fleeing the country; BioNTech’s ongoing partnership with his majesty’s government is still intact, a spokesperson confirmed to Fierce.
“Our multi-year collaboration with the U.K. government is ongoing and our plans announced in May are on track,” the spokesperson said. The company is investing approximately $1.3 billion in the U.K. over the next decade, with intent to build two new research centers in the country and a headquarters in London.
Though AstraZeneca has halted U.K. plans, the pharma recently unveiled plans to invest $50 billion in the U.S. by 2030. The U.S. initiative was proposed in July, as President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on medicines imported to the country.
The industry still doesn't have full clarity on pharmaceutical tariffs, but the threat alone has prompted AZ and many other drugmakers—including Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Novartis and Roche—to make significant U.S. investment pledges.
Eric Sagonowsky contributed to this report.