AstraZeneca Becomes Britain’s First £200bn Company
AstraZeneca has become Britain’s first £200bn company following a 20pc rally in its share price since the start of the year.
Shares in the pharmaceutical business rose 1.1pc yesterday to value the company at £200.3bn.
AstraZeneca’s stock has surged so far this year amid strong sales of its roster of cancer and rare disease medicines. The drug company jumped ahead of Shell in April to become the most valuable business on the FTSE 100.
AstraZeneca surpassed its long-term revenue targets last year, generating $45.8bn (£35.7bn) of sales compared with $25.7bn in 2014.
It said in May it was now targeting annual revenues of $80bn by 2030, claiming it was embarking on a “new era of growth”.
Pascal Soriot, the AstraZeneca chief executive, said many of the treatments it was developing had the potential to generate more than $5bn of revenue in a year.
It is aiming to launch a further 20 new medicines before the end of the decade.
As part of this push, AstraZeneca struck a £1.6bn deal in November for an experimental weight loss pill being developed by Chinese biotech company Eccogene.
