Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that Britain’s largest company, AstraZeneca, will invest £300 million (about $405 million) in the country after having paused several large-scale projects last year.
The investment comes after positive responses from major drugmakers, including AstraZeneca, to a U.S.–UK agreement designed to raise medicine prices in Britain in line with new U.S. pricing policies introduced under the Trump administration. The deal was finalized earlier in April.
“I can announce a significant new investment by AstraZeneca, investing 300 million pounds in UK life sciences, made possible by the pharmaceutical arrangement we have struck with the United States,” Starmer told lawmakers in parliament.
Companies such as AstraZeneca have cautioned that Europe could fall behind in access to new medicines under the evolving policy framework, known as most-favored-nation pricing.
“We want to recognize the importance of the U.S.-UK deal on pharmaceuticals, and the leading role this plays in ensuring increased spending on new medicines and driving access to new therapies,” AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said on a call with reporters shortly after Starmer’s announcement.
AstraZeneca reported stronger-than-expected earnings earlier on Wednesday, driven by robust demand for its cancer and rare-disease treatments.
The company’s new £300 million investment will be used to complete the Rosalind Franklin building at its Cambridge campus in eastern England and to develop a “lab of the future” that will use digital and data-driven tools to accelerate drug discovery and development.
Keir Starmer said the investment would help secure and future-proof around 1,000 jobs in Cambridge and Macclesfield in northern England.
This move follows a period of scaled-back commitments from AstraZeneca. Last year, the company paused a £200 million investment plan in Cambridge, one of the UK’s leading life sciences hubs, and also cancelled plans for a £450 million vaccine manufacturing facility in northern England after government support was withdrawn.
