“Manufacturing for AstraZeneca is not a core activity,” Mr Smith said. “AstraZeneca is about innovation and brand-building . . . There are lots of people and organisations that can manufacture better than we can.”
Mr Smith, who is leading a restructuring drive designed to cut costs and improve profitability before the expiry of patents on key drugs, said that the priority would be to outsource all of AstraZeneca’s manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients – the basic chemicals used to formulate conventional medicines.
He said that it would be possible to find significantly cheaper contract manufacturers, many of which would be in the Far East. “We are looking to access China and India in a much more meaningful way,” he said.
Later, the company would seek to strip out and outsource more sophisticated manufacturing and logistics activities.
Other big pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, the huge American group, have also begun outsourcing manufacturing recently. The company, which is the world’s biggest drugmaker said last week that it was shedding 420 jobs at its British factory, at Sandwich, Kent, and that it would opt to outsource some functions.
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