European News

Big pharma giant, AstraZeneca, has announced that its plans to open a new facility in northwest England have now changed, due to the “discouraging” corporation tax increase. Now opening in Ireland, the company will avoid the increase from 19% to 25%, which is set for April.

Initially, AstraZeneca’s chief executive officer, Sir Pascal Soriot, said that the company had planned to build the facility close to its other sites in the North West of England, however the increasing corporation tax led the company to adapt its plans, with Ireland looking more promising.

The decision to leave the UK will likely hinder the UK Government’s aim to become a life sciences “superpower”, according to Soriot, who added: “You need an environment that gives you good returns and incentive to invest.”

Tom Keith-Roach, AstraZeneca’s UK president, has previously warned that Britain will lose out on AstraZeneca’s investment following the tax rate increase, as the company plans to investigate more competitive countries.

The new facility will be a next-generation active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing plant for small molecules, based at the Alexion Campus in College Park Dublin, Ireland, with the company set to invest $360m in its development.

Soriot commented: “This is a tremendously proud moment for us all at AstraZeneca and I am delighted that we are bringing this very significant investment to Dublin, which, with the support of the IDA, will create highly skilled jobs, nurture the country’s dynamic life sciences sector and allow for the development of high value-added medicines.”