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Probably one of the most interesting stories is what is happening with AstraZeneca, this huge UK healthcare company, holding its first capital markets day in ten years. This is the UK's most valuable company. It's on the foot See one hundred. The most valuable company on the foot see one hundred. What it's saying this morning is that it's going to almost double sales to eighty billion dollars by twenty thirty. It's going to launch twenty new medicines by the end
of the decade as well. We're joined by Aaron Hannah Saren, the company's CFO, to discuss these targets. Good morning, Very nice to have you on the program. You've got a busy day coming up, so we're really gratefully spending some time with us this morning to lay out what you are seeing over the next ten years. The eighty billion revenue target that you've announced this morning implies kind of
seven eight percent top line growth during that period. The market doesn't see you generating those sort of numbers, or hasn't up until now. What is the market missing about the potential this company has that will get it to those kinds of growth rates.
Thanks for having me. That's exactly why we're actually hosting this investor day here today at the DISK. We are very excited about this bold ambition that we've set for twenty thirty, and it's actually not just one medicine but
a whole portfolio of medicine that we will highlight. The breadth and scope of our medicines is truly incredible, and it ranges everything from oncology and rare diseases to the medicines in biopharma for metabolic disorders as well as respiratory And the growth that we anticipate is both from existing products as well as the twenty new medicines that we expect to launch by twenty thirty.
It's really interesting you haven't included obesity in that list. Maybe you come back and discuss that in just a moment, but oncology clearly absolutely front and center as we work our way through this period. How big is oncology going to be for astrosenica as we get to the end of this period, how big a slice of the pie is oncology going to represent.
You know, oncology continues to grow very strongly today. Oncology is about forty percent of the business, and we expect very strong double digit growth in oncology, both in new medicines as well as our existing medicines and new indications for those medicines. Overall, we have over one hundred and twenty Phase two and three studies going on for our medicines, and again we're working on a whole bunch of new medicines that you'll hear about today.
Rathern I talk to us a little bit about your manufacturing plans here. Recently there have been investments in facilities in Dunkirk, Singapore, Liverpool, even Maryland as well. In light of some of the kind of crackdown that US regulatory authorities are putting in terms of where supply chains extend into Asia. How is Astroseneca tackling that manufacturing story.
So our manufacturing investments are very strategic. They are aligned very much with the new modalities and the new technologies that we have in our pipeline. So the announcement, for example in Maryland is for cell therapy products, which we see as sort of a completely new modality that will change how cancer care and autoimmune diseases are treated. What we announced a couple of days ago in Singapore is
for antibody drug conjugates. We expect that antibody drug conjugates will replace traditional chemotherapy over the next decade, and so we're making these investments ahead of what we see coming in our pipeline because we know that these medicines have the potential to be very large medicines.
Well, speaking of your pipeline and these targets, even just in terms of releasing the new twenty medicines, you're looking at between twenty thirty. That's already beating some of the estimates that you had laid out. I want to say just a couple of months ago.
Rather, I talk to us.
A little bit about the buyback story here. Some of your peers are executing some really big buybacks at this time. If you're looking to have this much success in the next five ten years, where do you stand on returning some of that capital to shareholders.
So our capital allocation priorities haven't really changed. First and foremost, the capital allocation is back investment into the business. We continue to invest, as you mentioned in capital plans, to sustain that growth, but also we invest somewhere between low twenties percentage of our revenue in R and D our.
Second is to maintain a strong investment grade rating. We had taken on significant amount of debt as we did the Alexion transaction back in twenty twenty early twenty twenty one, and we've reduced that leverage and today's standard under two
times leverage. Thirdly, we are returning capital to shareholders. At our recent Animal meeting, we announced an increase in our dividends, So dividend is generally our way to return capital to shareholders as well as obviously capital appreciation we have not historically done by BA and again we look at total shareholder returns, so the appreciation in the stock as well as the return of capital via dividends.
Rather than good morning. So you can ask you about obesity drugs. Clearly you've been very successful in oncology and the businesses has focused on that and on other areas, but around obesity, that's where a lot of the market chasser and excitement has been of late. What is Astra's plan when it comes to obesity.
So we have an oral molecule and oral GLP one that we're working on. We are going to begin various two different phase twos this year. In addition, we have an earlier molecule, which is long acting amulon. Both of those mechanisms are targeting weight management, and most importantly are strategies actually to combine them with agents that help with comorbidity. So in addition to weight management, many of these patients actually have heart disease or kidney disease, or hypertension or
hygh cholesterol. So it's really being able to provide a single solution and single oral solution for these patients. And that's really what we're focusing on, and we're going to do studies that show the outcomes with these drugs are very beneficial. So that's the hope and expectations for the weight management projects that we have in our pipeline.
Rather, we've talked about the production facilities that you have in lots of different parts of the world. Clearly a very global business still based in the UK, and you're coming to us from I know your R and D facility in Cambridge. How committed to a UK listing is a business like Astraseneca? Do you think is much talked about here at the moment about certain very high profile businesses thinking about possibly listing elsewhere in the United States, for example.
Well, we're very happy with our primary listing here in the UK. As you mentioned, I am here at our Discovery Center, which is called the DISC in Cambridge. This is a brand new facility and really state of the art, and we have over twenty two hundred scientists working here for treatment for cancer. We do expect that our portfolio of medicines in oncology, for example, will be able to potentially treat over half of all potential cancers by twenty thirty.
So again we have very ambitious targets, not just financial, but also in the way we're transforming care.
Carry on the conversation and talk more about geography. The United States has its biosecure acts which it's pushing through now the UK there are rumblings about something similar. Asta is a company that has invested heavily in China. Are these issues going to become more problematic? Is that investments in China going to become more difficult? Are you worried that the UK may ultimately go down the same route that we're seeing with the United States and its relations to China.
We have a very large and successful business in China, as you mentioned, and not only is it a commercial business, but I think because of our standing and history in China, we do have access to a lot of research that is also coming out of China, and we've done licenses and partnerships and BD transactions with companies with innovative companies in China. We've also invested in manufacturing in China. But again,
our supply chains are very robust. Those were tested during COVID and we did not miss a single dose for a single patient across the globe. But also they're segregated in ways, so for example, some of the facilities that we have in China actually supplied China for China or in the emerging market. So I think we try to manage our entire supply chain network so it is very mitigated from a risk standpoint.
This is a slightly left field question, but I'm going to pose it anyway. UK universities are really struggling with foreign students right now, and how we deal with foreign students here in the UK is becoming a sort of hot political issue. How much does do Zenica rely on foreign students coming through places like Cambridge in terms of providing the knowledge base that you ultimately rely on to invent to create new drugs.
Well, I count comments specifically on foreign students or not, but we do have a very large program to support the university. So for example, here in Cambridge we work closely, very much with the university. Here we also have a pH d student program where we provide internships for those PhD students and not just again in Cambridge, but across
the UK. So again our intention is to support science and to support research regardless of where those students come from and really help, okay you know, develop the best medicines rather.
Thank you very much, aradan As Saarmy and astro Zenica CFO joining us there