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AstraZeneca ramps up in Canada, cancels £450m Liverpool development




AstraZeneca has announced a $570million investment in Canada, creating more than 700 high-skilled jobs, across the business.

AstraZeneca’s investments in Canada since 2023 now exceed $0.9bn, creating a total of 1,200 new high-skilled jobs. In 2024, AstraZeneca acquired Hamilton, Ontario-based Fusion Pharmaceuticals for $2.08bn.

Inside's AstraZeneca plc's HQ at The Discovery Centre (DISC)
Inside's AstraZeneca plc's HQ at The Discovery Centre (DISC)

Doug Ford, premier of Ontario, said the news is “strengthening Ontario’s position as a global leader in life sciences and innovation”.

Meanwhile AstraZeneca has scrapped the planned £450m investment in a vaccine manufacturing plant in Merseyside - a massive reversal which has been interpreted differently by the parties involved.

The investment deal between the Government and AstraZeneca is not going ahead because it did not “add up for the UK taxpayer”, Sir Chris Bryant, Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, said.

He told MPs the Government feels “regretful” about the plan being ditched and “would prefer to have got this over the line”. The minister went on to say the Government made a “significant offer” to AstraZeneca which came “remarkably close” to the £90m offered by the previous administration. Then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt had initiated the deal to expand AstraZeneca’s existing facility in Speke at last year’s March budget.

Meanwhile the pharmaceutical company, whose global HQ is in Cambridge, says Labour failed to match the previous government’s offer of support.

Sir Chris Bryant said the planned investment deal did not ‘add up for the UK taxpayer’. Picture: Lucy North/PA
Sir Chris Bryant said the planned investment deal did not ‘add up for the UK taxpayer’. Picture: Lucy North/PA

“Several factors have influenced this decision, including the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous government’s proposal,” said an AstraZeneca spokesperson.

Labour MP for Blackley and Middleton South Graham Stringer said “losing investment in Merseyside and the North West is not compensated for by investment in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.

Conservative former minister Kit Malthouse said the situation “is obviously a terrible failure of negotiation” from the Government.

He said: “This is a terrible blow, not just for Speke and for Liverpool, the city of my birth, but also for our vaccination development environment generally.

The Discovery Centre (DISC) - AstraZeneca PLC
The Discovery Centre (DISC) - AstraZeneca PLC

“The lack of this production facility means there won’t be a pull for vaccination development in the UK and the various technologies that come with it.

“My question to the minister is what’s he going to do to replace it?”

Sir Chris replied: “Of course, we feel regretful about this.

“We would prefer to have got this over the line, and it wasn’t possible in large measure because AstraZeneca decided that it didn’t add up in whatever particular way for them.”



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