AstraZeneca

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The heart and soul of AstraZeneca R&D.

© David Porter/© 2024 AstraZeneca PLC. All rights reserved.

AstraZeneca is a British-Swedish biopharmaceutical company with medicine sales in more than 130 countries, making it one of the largest drug companies in the world. AstraZeneca’s main research and development areas include oncology, rare diseases, and biopharmaceutical intervention, and it has numerous ongoing projects. Global company headquarters are located in Cambridge, England, and it has more than 80,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide.

AstraZeneca was founded in 1999 when the Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra AB merged with U.K.–based pharmaceutical company Zeneca Group. At the time, it represented one of the largest mergers to ever occur between two European companies.

Astra AB dated back to 1913 and had established itself as a leading domestic pharmaceutical manufacturer in Sweden. The company’s first blockbuster drug was Xylocaine (lidocaine), a numbing agent that quickly gained popularity in the United States after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1950s.

Zeneca Group was founded in 1993 in Britain and maintained a major share of the oncology care market in both the U.K. and the U.S. The company’s main specialties were cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and respiratory drugs, as well as those relating to oncology and anesthesia.

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The numbing drug that put Astra AB on the map.

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Some of AstraZeneca’s most widely prescribed medicines in the 21st century include:

AstraZeneca also manufactures the popular proton-pump inhibitor drugs Nexium (esomeprazole magnesium) and Prilosec (omeprazole magnesium), which are used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease.

In 2012 AstraZeneca became a founding member, with nine other pharmaceutical companies, of the nonprofit TransCelerate BioPharma Inc. The organization’s mission is to improve access to information that helps facilitate the creation of new medicines. Some recent efforts have centered on refining methods to digitally share clinical trial information.

Pfizer, Inc., another of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, attempted to acquire AstraZeneca in 2014. The acquisition would have resulted in the creation of the world’s largest drug company. However, the deal garnered much criticism in Britain, primarily because of alleged tax breaks and job cuts that would have resulted from the merger. AstraZeneca ultimately declined the sale on the grounds that its profitability potential was greater than the price offered by Pfizer.

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Doctor holding a syringe and bottle containing a COVID-19 vaccine.

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AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine was created by the University of Oxford. The Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19) was a double-stranded DNA-based vaccine, as opposed to the popular Moderna and Pfizer offerings, which were based on single-stranded RNA. Commonly known by the brand names Vaxzevria and Covishield, AstraZeneca’s vaccine received high efficacy ratings and proved easier to store than most competitors’ vaccines, which often required storage in below-freezing temperatures. Demand outpaced supply, and the European Union registered complaints that AstraZeneca had failed to deliver millions of promised doses in early 2021.

By the spring of 2021 there were reports being made of serious blood-clot issues in a very small percentage of the people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine, primarily women of childbearing age. This led to a more restricted rollout of the vaccine than was initially planned, with some countries opting to limit distribution to the elderly. The vaccine was not approved by the FDA for use in the U.S. and is no longer being offered in the U.K as of August 2022. In May 2024 the company announced it would withdraw the vaccine worldwide, due to the number of newer vaccines from other companies that target newer strains of the virus.

Like most “big pharma” companies, AstraZeneca’s future depends on its ability to:

In 2023 the company settled a class action lawsuit for $425 million. The lawsuit claimed there was insufficient warning about Nexium’s potential to cause kidney damage when used for extended periods. AstraZeneca denied wrongdoing, and Nexium continues to be one of the company’s best-selling drugs.

As of 2024 the company is working to settle claims related to its COVID-19 vaccine. AstraZeneca admitted in an April 2024 court filing that its vaccine can cause rare but deadly blood clotting in some patients, but the vast majority of claims are still pending.