AstraZeneca may not stay in the vaccine business in the long run and is looking to buy small and mid-sized companies specialising in oncology and cardiovascular treatments, Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said in a Reuters Newsmaker interview on Tuesday.
Production delays, probes by regulators following rare cases of severe side effects and concerns about its relatively short shelf life compared with other shots have stymied adoption of AstraZenecaโs (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine.
Now, in the third year of the pandemic amid a global vaccine supply glut, its use has diminished in much of the developed world as countries have inoculated much of their populations and prefer Pfizer and Modernaโs mRNA vaccines as boosters.
AstraZenecaโs COVID vaccine has still not attained US approval.
โI cannot be sure the company will remain in the COVID vaccines business,โ Soriot said in the interview, adding it may also shelve plans to build a broader vaccines portfolio.
AstraZeneca is looking for bolt-on acquisitions, Soriot added.
โWe always look for external opportunities,โ he said.
The CEO has presided over a quadrupling of AstraZenecaโs share price in his decade at the helm.
โI can keep doing this job for many years,โ he said.
The 63-year old was once seen as a natural successor to outgoing Chairman Leif Johansson.
But in July, Soriot quashed speculation he was planning to retire any time soon, saying he expected to work with the companyโs newly announced chairman-designate Michel Demare for many years to come.
Soriot was tasked with turning around a troubled AstraZeneca โ hit by a string of key patent losses and a spate of clinical trial failures โ in October 2012, following a stint at pharma peer Roche (ROG.S).
With the Frenchman at the helm, the fortunes of the London-listed Anglo-Swedish drugmaker changed dramatically after he sharpened focus on speciality medicines and the lucrative field of oncology, made acquisitions to refill the companyโs medicine cabinet, fended off a hostile takeover from US pharma giant Pfizer (PFE.N), and invested heavily in R&D to improve the companyโs lacklustre drug development success rate.
However, he warned on Tuesday that fewer innovative medicines would be developed going forward due to new US drug price laws.
Asked about inflationary pressures, Soriot said: โWe are going to have to become more innovative and productive. We canโt expect our selling prices to go up.โ
