AstraZeneca breaks ground at $4.5 billion Virginia plant as drugmakers court Trump

By Maggie Fick LONDON (Reuters) -AstraZeneca broke ground on a new plant in Virginia on Thursday and said it would spend $4.5 billion on the facility as drugmakers look to respond to President Donald Trump's call for more medicines to be made in the U.S. and at lower costs. The site in Albemarle County, about 120 miles (193 km) southwest of Washington, will be the Anglo-Swedish company's largest manufacturing facility worldwide. The investment is part of AstraZeneca's plan announced in July to spend $50 billion to expand U.S. research and manufacturing by 2030. AstraZeneca said on Thursday the plant will create 600 highly skilled jobs, and 3,000 more will be created for its construction.  DRUGMAKERS LOOK TO RAMP UP U.S. MANUFACTURING The company also said it was expanding plans for the site to include production of blockbuster cancer medicines along with future weight-loss and metabolic drugs. It said it would spend $500 million more than initially planned. The groundbreaking was attended by a senior Trump administration health official, Dr Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "I congratulate AstraZeneca for their investment and invite other foreign manufacturers to follow suit," he said. ANALYSTS ASK: ARE INDUSTRY MOVES LARGELY POLITICAL? Trump has, using the threat of imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, extracted a range of concessions from the industry.  Last week U.S. drugmaker Pfizer announced at the White House that it would slash drug prices in Medicaid for low-income people and for new drugs in exchange for relief on tariffs, setting a tone for drugmaker peers to match. Analysts say such moves may have little impact on overall revenues and that the impact on prices will also be limited, raising questions over whether they are largely political. ASTRAZENECA CEO SORIOT NAVIGATES TRUMP'S DEMANDS ON INDUSTRY AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, who earlier this year described his firm as a "very American company", has looked to balance Trump's demands on the sector. Last month, the company announced a full listing of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange and said it would soon sell diabetes and asthma drugs direct to U.S. patients at discounts of up to 70%. On Thursday, Soriot said the Virginia facility would "strengthen America's national security and health sovereignty", after earlier this year criticising European governments for not spending more on medicines. ​ (Reporting by Maggie FickEditing by Adam Jourdan and Nia Williams)

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