AstraZeneca Shows Why Pharmaceutical Companies Don’t Innovate
The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant has made a financial and prestige comeback since its low point a decade ago. But it has done so without producing breakthroughs in scientific knowledge.
With a market capitalization of $210 billion as of January 2024, AstraZeneca is the most valuable company in the United Kingdom and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.1 Alongside Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson—all U.S. corporations—AstraZeneca was one of the few pharmaceutical companies that succeeded in rapidly developing and distributing a vaccine for COVID-19 during the pandemic’s initial spread from 2020 to 2021. This was surprising given that, at the time, the company had next to no experience in vaccine development.2 After nearly a decade of stagnation and decline, AstraZeneca’s total revenue doubled from 2018 to 2022, going from just over $20 billion to nearly $45 billion.3 The turnaround in this established corporation’s fortunes is the result of French CEO Pascal Soriot, who was installed in 2012 with the support of the Swedish Wallenberg family, one of the largest and oldest shareholders in the company. But AstraZeneca is a case study in why even a financially successful and well-run pharmaceutical company does not drive forward progress in science.