AstraZeneca puts faith in innovation

Pharma MNC investing more in R&D to achieve its 'In China, for global' goal

Multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is bullish about China's role as a global innovation powerhouse, underpinned by the country's sound prospects as well as its growing innovation capability in new and emerging sectors, its top executive said.

Pascal Soriot, global CEO of AstraZeneca, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily that the company is investing more in research and development in the world's second-largest economy rather than merely in manufacturing, in order to achieve its goal of "In China, for global", which means leveraging China's supply chains to produce and export medicines, while also cooperating with Chinese partners to discover new medicines and develop them globally.

"China will become, or actually has already become a big engine of innovation in our industry," Soriot said, pointing to "enormous innovations "across various pharmaceutical technologies happening in the country, including gene therapies, cell therapies, antibody-drug-conjugates, as well as recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence achieved by Chinese AI companies such as DeepSeek.