Forecasts raised amid investigations in China

AstraZeneca raised full-year forecasts and reiterated ambitious 2030 targets, but its third-quarter trading update failed to lift the share price.
Total revenue rose 21 per cent to about $13.7 billion in the three months to the end of September year-on-year at constant exchange rates, with demand up across its cancer, biopharmaceuticals and rare diseases drugs portfolio.
Sales rose 23 per cent to $6 billion in the United States, its largest market, and 31 per cent in emerging markets to almost $1.8 billion, excluding China, where sales rose 15 per cent to $1.7 billion.
The strong trading performance prompted the Anglo-Swedish company to raise full-year revenue and core earnings per share forecasts to “high teens percentage growth”.
Sir Pascal Soriot, who has overseen the turnaround of the portfolio of Britain’s biggest pharma company since he took charge in 2012, said AstraZeneca would issue formal guidance for next year at full-year results in February, but “we’re very confident that the headwinds we anticipate next year will be substantially offset by global demand for our portfolio of medicines”.
He added: “By the end of 2025, everybody will have a good sense as to where we are in terms of the trajectory to 2030, because we will have had quite a number of [drug trial] readouts that are very material, very substantial.”
At a capital markets day in Cambridge in May, the company set out a target to almost double total revenue to $80 billion by 2030.
Soriot, 65, suggested short-term trading could be impacted by investigations by authorities in China, but remained upbeat on its prospects there.
“It would be reasonable to expect we will be affected, but we will work through this and certainly continue building our presence there.”
Despite the full-year upgrade and positive outlook, shares in AstraZeneca traded down 0.6 per cent, or 58p, at £99.27.
The shares have sold-off in recent weeks over fears about the extent of the China investigations and are down a quarter since September’s peak.
Analysts at Shore Capital said AstraZeneca’s shares trade on a forward price earnings ratio of about 14 times “broadly in line to the US and European peer group but well below the about 18 times forward-looking multiple it has historically commanded.”
The City brokerage added: “Despite some growing uncertainty around China, we still believe a premium is warranted based on its earnings growth and pipeline prospects.”
Britain’s biggest pharmaceuticals company is increasing its investment in the United States to $3.5 billion as it aims to boost its ability to supply the US market from within the country.
The announcement came a week after Donald Trump won the US presidential election on the back of a campaign where he raised the prospect of introducing tariffs on imports amid the spectre of a trade war with China.
AstraZeneca outlined the capital investments to expand its research and manufacturing presence in its largest market by the end of 2026, with its senior executives in New York to present its third-quarter results.
AstraZeneca has previously announced plans to develop an R&D centre in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, a US biotech hub, but on Tuesday said it also planned $2 billion of new investment, creating more than a thousand jobs.
The company, which operates two of its five global strategic centres in the US, said it would invest in a “next generation” biologics manufacturing facility in Maryland, cell therapy manufacturing capacity on the west coast and specialty manufacturing in Texas.
Explaining the decision, Sir Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s group chief executive, said: “You need a strong economy if you want to have a good healthcare system. And a good healthcare system will also drive innovation in biology and medicine. And so we see the US as a really critical market for our future.
“Our share of revenue in the US is about 44 per cent of our total global revenue. We see that share growing in the future as we launch new, innovative medicines. So the investment is a testimony of our confidence in the US economy and the US marketplace over the next few years.”
Asked whether AstraZeneca would accelerate the creation of a separate supply chain for China, its second-largest market, because of the prospect of Washington becoming more hawkish towards Beijing under a second Trump presidency and triggering a tariffs war, Soriot said: “We’ve been building two separate supply chains. And we did this before the recent presidential elections … And again, that’s why we’re investing $3.5 billion in the United States, because we want to supply the US from the US to the extent we can.”
In the UK, where the company remains in discussions with the government over investing in expanding a nasal flu plant in Speke, in northwest England, he said the Cambridge-based company would continue to look at potential investments, but reiterated: “The issue in the UK is we need to make sure access to medicines will be supported … If you don’t think your products are going to be reimbursed and used by patients, it’s a less attractive environment.”