AstraZeneca's chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has warned that western pharmaceutical companies must adopt "Chinese speed" in drug development or risk being overtaken by increasingly innovative Chinese rivals, much as European and American carmakers lost ground to Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers. Speaking as the FTSE 100 firm reported its half-year results, Soriot said AstraZeneca was closely watching and collaborating with China's fast-growing pharmaceutical sector, while urging the wider western industry to accelerate innovation to avoid falling behind.

AstraZeneca reported revenues of £30.7bn for the first half of 2026, up 6% year-on-year at constant exchange rates, and said it remained confident of hitting its 2030 target of $80bn (£60bn) in annual sales, up from $59bn last year. This is despite the recent clinical trial failure of its heart disease drug Wainua, which Soriot described as an inevitable part of drug development. He also dismissed fears that AI would cut jobs in the sector, arguing it would instead boost productivity, and said the company would seek clarity from the new health secretary, Andy Burnham, over a US-brokered deal that could raise NHS drug costs by billions of pounds.