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Astrazenca has canceled plans for a £ 450m vaccine factory in the UK after months of quarrel with British state support officials in a major blow to Prime Minister Sir Starmer’s government.
UK officials submitted a revised financial support offer for the site near Liverpool this month that was significantly higher than £ 40m offered last year, according to people familiar with the issue.
Starmer’s work government initially demanded last summer to reduce the quantity of public money given to the project in species from about 90 million to £ 40m.
“After prolonged discussions with the government, we are no longer pursuing our planned investment in specress,” Astrazenca said in a statement on Friday.
“Some factors have influenced this decision including time and reducing the final bid compared to the previous government’s proposal.”
The new plant would make the next generation of flu vaccines and help the UK to be more resilient in future pandemics.
The existing specress site will continue to produce and supply a flu vaccine, said Astrazenca, the largest company ranked in the United Kingdom by market capitalization.
The decision comes just days after Chancellor Rachel Reeves tried to position the United Kingdom as a very attractive place for life science companies to invest in a great deal on growth.
Starmer and Reeves have faced business criticism for their tax collection budget of 40 billion last year and other measures, including the strongest rights of workers that executives have warned will make the United Kingdom a less attractive place to invest.
The previous UK offer for the pharmaceutical group under the former conservative cancer Jeremy Hunt included up to 70 million in grants in grants to develop an existing astrazenca vaccine structure in species, as well as 20 million in research and support for development by agency of health safety in the UK.
Hunt, who announced the agreement on a major fanaticism in March last year, told the Financial Times that the decision of astrazene was a “massive goal of the government itself”.
“Producing high -level vaccines is a great opportunity for us to get away from excessive dependence on the R&D value chain,” he said. “I personally intervened to get this agreement on the line in 2023 and I’m defeated the government has fallen into it.”
The Treasury said: “A change in the composition of the investment originally proposed by the astrazeneca led to a reduced offer of government grants to appear. All government grant funds must demonstrate values for taxpayers and unfortunately, despite the widespread work by government officials, it has not been possible to reach a solution. “
She added: “Astrazenca remains closely engaged with government work to develop our new industrial strategy.”
A person with knowledge of relationships said that astrazenica had become “deeply frustrated” with the government, with only one point of tension in a wider clash of industry over drug prices and future life science investments.
People near the pharmaceutical group said she was looking at other possible production sites for her new vaccine factory now that she has abandoned the plan of species.
In November, Astrazenca said he planned to invest $ 3.5 billion in research and development and production in the US, the largest pharmaceutical market in the world, which generates 44 percent of the company’s sales.
Astrazenca chief Pascal Soriot said at the time that the investment reflected “attracting the business environment along with the quality of the talent and abilities of innovation”.
The company is also planning a $ 1.5 billion manufacturing structure in Singapore, and last week a $ 560 million investment in Canada pledged.
People with business knowledge said that his decision on the species object would not affect any of the other investments in the UK.
The specress decision comes at a time when the US is providing very attractive skills for companies planning to invest in production, including through state infrastructure investments, and research and development grants.
President Donald Trump has called for “any business in the world” to come to make your product in America. “
“We will give you among the lowest taxes of every nation on Earth,” Trump said in a video stream at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. “But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a fee.”
Trump has said he wants to lower the corporate tax from 21 percent to 15 percent.
