AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot Deepens China Commitment with Vaccine Collaboration and Expanded Investments

China Finance and Economics News, March 26 (Reporter Du Ding) — From March 24 to 25, the 2024 Annual Meeting of the China Development Forum was held in Beijing. AstraZeneca's Global CEO Pascal Soriot attended the forum and spoke at the seminar on the large health industry. This is his sixth visit to China in the past 15 months.

"As China continues to drive high-quality research and development, pushing the frontiers of innovative drug development, I believe that China's economy will continue to unleash enormous potential in areas such as healthcare, benefiting patients in China and around the world," said Pascal Soriot. He noted that after more than 30 years of development in China, the country has become a significant growth engine for AstraZeneca globally. China is playing an increasingly important role in driving industry transformation through artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and renewable energy. "Therefore, we are continuously increasing our investment in China. In line with our commitment of 'In China, For China,' AstraZeneca will further advance collaborations to bring China's innovative healthcare solutions to patients worldwide."

During the China Development Forum, AstraZeneca signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Daxing District Government of Beijing and Beijing Minhai Biotech Co., Ltd. to jointly explore collaboration models in the vaccine field. This includes exploring potential opportunities for the localization of innovative vaccine pipelines in China, clinical research, regulatory submissions, and commercialization, thereby supporting the development of China's health ecosystem and the innovation of its medical industry. It is reported that through this collaboration, AstraZeneca will leverage the concentrated pharmaceutical R&D and regulatory resources in Beijing’s Daxing area, cooperate with high-quality local enterprises to introduce advanced overseas vaccine production and management technologies, and potentially bring more innovative vaccine candidates through this project, accelerating global innovations to benefit Chinese patients sooner.

AstraZeneca's Global Executive Vice President and President of International Business & China, Leon Wang, stated that this collaboration with the Daxing District People's Government of Beijing and Minhai Biotechnology is another example of AstraZeneca deepening its local cooperation and promoting "East-West integration" innovation. It is also an important milestone for AstraZeneca's development in the disease prevention field.

Reporter learned that in the recent months, AstraZeneca has frequently increased its layout in China, not only investing 700 million US dollars to build a new inhalation aerosol production and supply base in Qingdao, and 475 million US dollars to construct a small molecule drug factory in Wuxi, but also announced last month that Shanghai would become its fifth global strategic center.