AstraZeneca CEO hails NHS drug price deal but keeps pause on £200m UK investment
The boss of Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company has said the government’s recent drug pricing deal is a “very positive step” but is unlikely to unfreeze a paused £200m investment in Cambridge.AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, suggested that a UK-US deal on NHS pricing agreed in December would not be “sufficient” to restart the project to build a research site in the east of England, which was paused in September.Soriot, who has rebuilt the company’s drugs pipeline since 2012 and turned it into the UK’s most valuable listed business, also described the US as “the most attractive market in the world”.During Keir Starmer’s visit to Beijing two weeks ago, AstraZeneca announced $15bn (£11bn) of investments in China, its second-biggest market, and is also pouring $50bn into US factories and labs by 2030.The British drugmaker listed its shares in New York and they began trading on 2 February, but it kept its main stock listing in London.
While Soriot reiterated the company’s commitment to the UK, it has had a prickly relationship with the UK government of late, with a long-running row between industry and ministers over drug pricing and the availability of new medicines on the NHS.The stalemate came closer to being resolved in December when the UK and US governments announced a deal over drug pricing, after pressure from Donald Trump for lower prices in the US, where they have traditionally been much higher than elsewhere.AstraZeneca ditched a planned £450m expansion of its vaccine site in Speke, near Liverpool, a year ago, and later paused a £200m investment in its research hub in Cambridge, where it has its global headquarters.Asked what it would take to unblock the frozen Cambridge investment, Soriot said the UK-US drug pricing announcement – which is estimated to cost the NHS £1bn over the first three years of the 10-year deal – was “a very positive step towards achieving rebalancing around the world, but also creating an attractive life sciences ecosystem in this country”.He added that the company still needed to understand the practical implementation; as a “first step” the deal will improve access to a number of medicines for patients, but “it probably will not be sufficient for many of these truly innovative products”.
He said only 40% of medicines that were sold in the US were available in Europe,AstraZeneca’s breast cancer infusion Enhertu has not been recommended for use on the NHS in England and Wales by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the body that assesses new medicines for cost effectiveness,Soriot noted that many drugs failed in development and said “that risk and that cost has to be recognised”,His remarks came as AstraZeneca forecast steady sales and profit growth this year,Soriot hopes to reach a target of $80bn in annual sales by 2030.
The FTSE 100 company’s share price rose 2% in London on Tuesday.It predicted that 2026 revenues will grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage at constant currency rates, with “some impact” from US price cuts, and core profit growth will be a low double-digit percentage.Last year, sales rose 8% to $58.7bn while profits were up 11%.Sales in the fourth quarter rose 2% to a record $15.
5bn, slightly better than analysts had expected.Sales of cancer drugs rose 20% to $7bn in the quarter, but revenues from cardiovascular products fell 6% to $3.1bn, party due to generic competition.Soriot said the drugmaker had 16 blockbuster medicines – products with annual sales of more than $1bn – and aimed to have 25 by 2030.It is now running more than 100 late-stage clinical trials, and expects to present results on more than 20 of them this year.
BT replaces Openreach boss in latest management shake-up
The head of BT’s infrastructure arm, Openreach, is to step down after nearly a decade, having almost completed a £12bn rollout of full fibre broadband to 25m homes.Clive Selley, who was tasked by the former BT chief Philip Jansen to “build like fury” to address the UK’s status as global laggard in the introduction of high-speed broadband, will become the boss of BT’s international division.Selley is being replaced by his deputy, Katie Milligan, who will decide on whether to further expand the fibre network to 30m homes by 2030.The change in management is the latest in a shake-up by Allison Kirkby, BT’s first female boss, who has changed 10 of the 11 members of the telecoms group’s executive committee since she took over in February 2024.After joining in 2016, Selley was tasked with upgrading the ageing Openreach network, which provides broadband across the UK, to full fibre
BP halts share buy-backs as annual profits slide
BP has halted share buybacks after reporting weaker annual profits as it prepares to continue a plan to resuscitate its fortunes under a new chief executive.The company became the first large oil company to suspend its buybacks after its underlying earnings fell to just below $7.5bn (£5.5bn) for 2025, down from almost $9bn for 2024.Oil companies have reported weaker profits over the last year after global prices fell for a third consecutive year and at the steepest rate since the Covid pandemic
Telstra joint venture to axe more than 200 jobs amid AI rollout
More than 200 Telstra jobs are expected to be cut, as the telco rolls out AI capabilities and sends some jobs to India.Telstra and the technology consultancy Accenture announced a $700m joint venture (JV) in 2025 to drive efficiency, modernisation and productivity.A JV spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that the team had been notified “about proposed changes to its workforce, including reducing roles where work is no longer needed, and moving some work to the JV team in India”.If the changes proceed, the spokesperson said, affected team members would be helped to find new jobs either at Telstra or at Accenture, or have “access to our leading career transition program and retrenchment benefits”.Sign up: AU Breaking News email“These changes would see the JV use Accenture’s global capabilities, advanced AI expertise and specialist hub in India to deliver Telstra’s data and AI roadmap more quickly
Europeans shunning US as Emirates and Asia travel prove popular, says Tui
Europeans are booking fewer trips to the US, Europe’s biggest travel operator has said, as appetite for long-haul travel wanes and concerns linger around Donald Trump’s immigration policies.Tui, which receives most of its bookings from customers in Europe, has seen “significantly lower demand” for travel into the US, according to its chief executive, Sebastian Ebel.“What we do see is growing business to the Emirates and Asia,” he said. “We also see European demand to the Caribbean, which – due to capacity – had not been the biggest priority in the past, but there we see now potential again to grow.”It comes amid signs that demand for long-haul travel across the Atlantic is waning
NatWest is chasing the mass affluent wallet. So is everyone else | Nils Pratley
Announce a £2.7bn acquisition and watch your stock market value fall by £3.1bn.NatWest picked a bad day to announce its big move in the fashionable field of “wealth management” – the noise from Westminster created a poor backdrop for UK assets such as gilts and domestic banks. But the main problem with its Evelyn Partners deal is that it is very much of the “one for the long term” variety
Rise in UK borrowing costs reverses after cabinet backs Starmer
UK borrowing costs dipped back on Monday after rising earlier in the day, as cabinet ministers voiced support for the embattled Keir Starmer.The yield, or interest rate, on UK benchmark bonds initially increased on Monday as traders reacted to Sunday’s resignation of the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.Yields rose further after the Downing Street communications director, Tim Allan, resigned on Monday morning, with long-term borrowing costs then hitting their highest level since November, as the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called on Starmer to stand down as prime minister.With the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, saying Starmer’s position was “untenable” after the departure of McSweeney, and the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, agreeing he should resign, the City of London was weighing up the prime minister’s survival chances, and assessing the impact of likely replacements on the public finances and the economy.At one stage, the yield on 10-year UK government debt rose by as much as 7 basis points (0
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