AstraZeneca is building a separate Chinese supply chain to try to circumvent increased US-China tensions, as chief executive Pascal Soriot said Chinese drug sales and innovation would help the company hit a new $80 billion revenue target by 2030, reports the Financial Times. The drugmaker, the world’s largest seller of pharmaceutical products in China and in other emerging markets, has established a manufacturing plant in Qingdao that will only serve those regions, Soriot said on Tuesday.
“We hope for the best and plan for the worst,” he said, after the Biden administration announced new tariffs on Chinese imports to the US last week.
Drugs are not hit by the tariffs and the company said it would not be affected by the crackdown. But Soriot, speaking on the sidelines of an investor conference in Cambridge, said: “Planning for the worst means you have to consider there might be tensions in the supply chain. We are trying to build a supply chain that would be focused on China.”