Less than a year after a scandal embroiled its then China boss, pharma group AstraZeneca appears to have bounced back, maintaining sales and avoiding major fallout in the country.
Since Leon Wang’s arrest last October during a probe of alleged illegal drug sales, the UK-listed company has installed new local leadership, launched an employee incentive scheme and pledged $2.5bn for a Beijing research and development centre — the centrepiece of a strategy aimed at stabilising its China business.
AstraZeneca’s latest results suggest progress in the country which accounts for 13 per cent of its revenues. After a 1 per cent fall in the last three months of 2024, sales in China were up 4 per cent in the first half of this year to $3.5bn, driven by the inclusion of two cancer drugs in a national reimbursement scheme and by solid demand for long-standing drugs in poorer regions.