AstraZeneca pushes EU to spend more on drugs amid Trump tariffs threat

The head of Britain’s largest drug company has demanded Europe ramp up spending on medicines amid fears over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of FTSE 100 giant AstraZeneca, said Europe was “falling behind” the US on drug spending and needed to boost investment to help protect its people from illness.

He said the EU should treat the pharmaceutical industry in the same manner as the defence sector, which has received fresh funding after the US president cut military support for Ukraine.

The industry have been lobbying Brussels in recent weeks to help boost its competitiveness in light of the tariff threats, including charging customers higher prices for medicines.

On Wednesday, Mr Soriot, 65, ramped up demands for the EU to spend more.

“The world order is shifting right now and Europe needs to invest more in what really matters to it. Europe has stepped up to invest more in defence and now it must protect its health sovereignty,” he said.

“Europe spends a substantially lower share of GDP on innovative medicines than the US and, as a result, is falling behind in attracting R&D and manufacturing investments, putting its ability to protect the health of its own people at risk.”

His plea coincides with an industry-wide push to force Brussels to offer more support to the bloc’s drug making giants.

In the letter in early April to Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, more than 30 of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies called on the EU to boost public spending on the industry, including by increasing the prices of medicines.

They said the EU should “rethink its pricing policy” in response to a drop in the proportion of money it spends on drugs compared with America.

The letter – which was signed by Emma Walmsley, the GSK chief executive, and Mr Soriot – said that boosting spending on drugs could help lower the EU’s trade deficit with America in the face of “the increased trade tension with the US”.

It said: “The US already leads Europe on every investor metric from availability of capital, intellectual property, speed of approval to rewards for innovation. Continued trade tensions will further accelerate the erosion of R&D and manufacturing investments in the EU.”

It says Europe’s share of global spending on pharmaceuticals has fallen from 29.6pc in 2004 to 22.7pc last year, while America’s share of drugs expenditure has increased from 47.8pc to 53.3pc.

The EU spent €1.25 trillion (£1.07 trillion) on healthcare in 2023, equivalent to 7pc of its GDP, according to the most recent figures from Eurostat, the EU official data provider.