UK’s biggest drugmakers see surprise profit bump, even as pharma grapples with U.S. policies

U.K. pharma giants AstraZeneca and GSK saw first-quarter profits beat expectations early Wednesday, as pharma executives become increasingly outspoken about the risk to European patients losing out on new medicines as a result of U.S. drug pricing policy.

Several pharma CEOs have warned that Europe could see fewer new drugs launched amid a push by U.S. President Donald Trump to lower prices for medicines in America — unless Europe addresses some of the continent’s most pressing issues impacting competitiveness.

The CEOs of Novartis, Roche, and Boehringer Ingelheim have also said that European countries risk missing out on novel medicines if prices in the lucrative U.S. market are tied to lower prices elsewhere, in Trump’s most-favored-nation (MFN) drug pricing policy.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said Wednesday that if the gap between U.S. prices and prices in a reference country becomes too large, it will not be able to launch the drug there despite its “best intent” to bring new medicines to patients.

His comments came as AstraZeneca’s core earnings per share came in at $2.58, while analysts polled by FactSet had expected $2.53. GSK’s core EPS was £0.47 ($0.63) versus the expected £0.43, as per FactSet.

Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan told CNBC on Tuesday that the “reality of MFN” hadn’t kicked in yet, but that it will start having an impact in the next 18 months. He also said that, while talks with European governments were ongoing, not enough action was being taken.

The U.K. made a deal with the U.S. in early April to exempt medicines made in the U.K. from tariffs, in return for paying higher prices for new drugs through its National Health Service. AstraZeneca said Wednesday it would invest £300 million in U.K. life sciences, including completing a research facility in Cambridge that was paused last year.

“What the U.K. has agreed with the U.S. is certainly a very important step in the right direction,” Soriot said, adding that more is still needed.

Pricing regulations developed in the U.S. have complicated an already complex situation, GSK CEO Luke Miels told reporters on Wednesday. “There’s no immediate change to our launch sequence or our portfolio decisions based on what we know today,” he said, adding that the company needs to focus on what it can control, namely developing medicines.