Ministers take note: now is the moment to fight to keep AstraZeneca’s listing in London | Nils Pratley
It was an opportunity for Sir Pascal Soriot, as chief executive of AstraZeneca, the UK’s finest pharmaceutical firm, to kill the story stone dead if he wished.Does he want to move the company’s stock market listing to the US, as reported by the Times a few weeks ago? He declined to answer.Then he did something else: he turned his press conference after Tuesday’s half-year numbers into a declaration of love, more or less, for all things American.“The US is the country in our industry where innovation is taking place,” he said, noting that half the group’s sales will be in the US by 2030.The new multibillion-dollar manufacturing facility in Virginia – part of a $50bn investment in the US over the next five years – had progressed to signoff in 33 days.
The US administration is considering AstraZeneca’s proposals for reducing medicine prices for Americans.“We are a very American company,” said the French-Australian Soriot at one point, name-checking his various American senior colleagues.True, he also said AstraZeneca is “committed” to the UK, but he was referring directly to sites such as the £1bn research and development in Cambridge, rather than the stock market listing.An analysis followed on the failings of Europe, the UK included, versus the US and China in terms of backing pharmaceutical innovation.The US invests 0.
8% of its GDP in the sector, he said, versus 0.3% in Europe.He wished the UK could aim for 0.5%, and then 0.6%, to provide a bit of competition.
What to make of this (clearly) preplanned response? One could shrug and say any chief executive of a globally active pharmaceutical company would be foolish not to sing the praises of the US at a moment when its president is throwing tariffs around and has steep local drug prices in his sights,Shifting investment to the US makes sense in that context,Also, Soriot’s grumbles about Europe are not new,The specific frustrations with the UK flow from the price the NHS pays for prescription medicines plus the value-for-money rules that are applied to new drugs,Most pharma companies make similar noises on that score.
Yet the stock market listing – the bit Soriot left hanging in the air – is the new angle here.It would have been a simple matter for him to say, as many other large FTSE 100 companies with large US operations do, that there is no tension between a London listing and an increased operational focus state-side.But he didn’t.The government should take note.A relisting would be expensive for AstraZeneca if it included a redomicile (and, otherwise, what’s the point?), but ministers cannot rule it out, or just assume Soriot is making a power-play as part of the industry-wide negotiations on medicine prices.
The stakes here are too high for complacency.A defection by the UK’s largest quoted company would blow a hole in two government missions: firstly to inject life into the London stock market, and secondly to make the UK a “life sciences superpower”.Unfortunately, the government is also starting on the back foot with AstraZeneca after the fiasco with the £450m Speke vaccine plant in Liverpool.Accounts are disputed but the most plausible reading is that the company lost patience after the Treasury tried to shave a few million quid off the support package agreed under the last government.Whatever the details, the result was for a terrible own-goal for a “pro-growth” government.
Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe government’s other difficulty is the lack of cash to throw at NHS medicines, the factor that may persuade Soriot to start talking enthusiastically about AstraZeneca’s British roots once again.One hopes political cogs are turning behind the scenes because something has to give.If Soriot still isn’t committing publicly to the UK listing in six months’ time, there is a big problem.
Wes Streeting says striking doctors ‘will lose a war with this government’
The doctors union “will lose a war with this government”, Wes Streeting has said, adding that the NHS is ready to tough out a prolonged series of strikes by the British Medical Association (BMA).In his most outspoken comments so far about the dispute involving resident doctors in England, the health secretary vowed that Labour would never give in to their demand for a 29% pay rise.However, in a plea to the BMA, he urged it to agree a deal based on tackling other frustrations those doctors have, separate to their salaries, in which both sides would “win the peace”.Fresh talks are planned next week. For these to have any chance of success, Streeting said, the BMA should agree it will not call any more strikes and accept that other NHS staff deserve decent pay increases too, not just medics, who are already paid more than many colleagues
An ethics record that this Labour government can be proud of | Letter
Re your editorial (The Guardian view on standards in politics: a golden reform opportunity squandered, 25 July), before being elected to parliament for the first time last year, I dedicated nearly 15 years of my life to tackling bribery and corruption. And I am pleased that the government is implementing its manifesto commitments to improve standards.Let us not forget the steady work of Margaret Hodge, who is progressing a comprehensive, cross-government anti-corruption strategy to be published later this year, and the Covid counter-fraud commissioner, Tom Hayhoe, whose work is so vital to restoring trust in government. And let us not forget what the government has already committed to in its first 12 months: replacing the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, increasing the frequency of ministerial hospitality disclosures, scrapping hereditary peers, votes at 16, rolling out automatic voter registration, tightening up political party financing and empowering the Electoral Commission.That’s a track record to be proud of and a clear change of course from the political indifference to ethics, integrity and democratic participation exhibited by recent Conservative governments
Labour pays estimated £2m to settle claims by 20 people over leaked antisemitism dossier
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Zack Polanski’s ‘eco-populism’ could put voters off Greens, opponents say
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Family of British couple held in Iran urge UK to raise case in talks with Tehran
The son of a British woman who has been held in Iran since January on espionage charges along with her husband has called on the UK government to raise their case during talks with Iran reportedly taking place in Istanbul later this week.Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 52, were arrested on 3 January in Kerman, southern Iran, while travelling through the country from Armenia to Pakistan on a motorcycle journey to Australia.The family, who have not had direct contact with the couple since their incarceration, have said promises from the Foreign Office in the past fortnight to arrange conversations with the couple had not materialised.Six weeks ago, the Foreign Office said it did not know the couple’s whereabouts, despite initially having said they were being transferred to Evin prison in Tehran.Lindsay’s eldest son, Joe Bennett, said the family were past breaking point
UK to recognise state of Palestine in September unless Israel holds to ceasefire
The UK will formally recognise the state of Palestine this September as a result of the “increasingly intolerable” situation on the ground in Gaza, unless Israel abides by a ceasefire and commits to a two-state solution in the Middle East.Keir Starmer’s cabinet has agreed a roadmap for peace in the region after coming under intense domestic pressure over the mounting humanitarian crisis in the territory, and calls to follow France in acknowledging statehood.The prime minister recalled his cabinet from their summer break to approve the plan after holding talks with Donald Trump in Scotland. The US president said the issue had not come up, but that he did “not mind” the UK taking a position, even if he would not.Starmer told his ministers that, because of the catastrophic situation on the ground in Gaza and the diminishing prospect of reaching a two-state solution, now was the right time to finally move
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