AstraZeneca has announced plans to almost double revenue to $80 billion (€73.5bn) by 2030 as chief executive Pascal Soriot prepares for an investor update viewed internally as the drugmaker’s biggest in a decade.
The Anglo-Swedish group on Tuesday said it would grow its existing portfolio and launch 20 new medicines before the end of the decade, in areas including cancer care and rare diseases, to raise revenue from $45.8 billion in 2023.
“Today AstraZeneca announces a new era of growth,” said Mr Soriot. “The breadth of our portfolio together with continued investment in innovation supports sustained growth well past the end of the decade.”
The announcement comes as the pharmaceutical group prepares to present its long-term growth plans at a highly anticipated investor event in Cambridge, England, on Tuesday. The company employs around 760 people in the Republic.
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The event is seen as the most significant since AstraZeneca successfully fended off a takeover attempt from US rival Pfizer in 2014 with an aggressive target of delivering $45 billion in revenue by 2023.
Shares in the company rose by less than 1 per cent on Tuesday morning. The $80 billion target had been “widely expected”, said Peter Welford, an analyst at Jefferies.
[ Europe falling behind US and China in pharma innovation, warns AstraZeneca chiefOpens in new window ]
AstraZeneca has delivered some of the highest shareholder returns in the industry under Soriot’s watch, developing a portfolio of cancer, cardiovascular and rare diseases medicines that brought in $45.8 billion in sales last year.
But share price growth has tailed off in the past year, with shares up less than 2 per cent as investors harbour doubts about ongoing growth and as key drugs such as its blockbuster diabetes, heart failure and kidney disease treatment Farxiga face patent expiries.
Tuesday’s update has been discussed internally at AstraZeneca as its most important long-term event since the 2014 target. The company’s antibody drug conjugates, a sophisticated form of chemotherapy that involves targeting cancer cells without killing surrounding healthy tissue, will be key to reaching its new $80 billion goal.
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AstraZeneca said on Monday that it would open a $1.5 billion facility in Singapore dedicated to their production.
The company’s Enhertu ADC drug developed with Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo brought in more than $2.5 billion in sales last year, and AstraZeneca is trialling the drug to expand its uses across breast and lung cancer. It has another ADC in development that is awaiting approval by regulators.
AstraZeneca is also seeking to gain a foothold in the lucrative obesity market, dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Investors are awaiting early data on a weight-loss pill it licensed last year from Chinese biotech Eccogene. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
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