Astra right to end its missionary worker act

Hero or villain? It says much about the bitterness of some European leaders that Pascal Soriot was ever cast as the latter during the pandemic. The vilification of Astrazeneca’s chief was a sordid moment in the crisis, as the likes of Emmanuel Macron sought to deflect from criticism at home for the way that France had fallen badly behind in the race to inoculate its people.

Soriot will be remembered by fair-minded people as one of the standout champions of the crisis for the courage and leadership he displayed in providing the company’s unequivocal backing for Oxford University’s experimental Covid vaccine.

He showed total faith in Prof Sarah Gilbert in agreeing to provide the commercial and manufacturing heft needed to turbocharge development of the AZD1222 jab and bring it to market in time to save untold numbers of lives. And what’s more, it pledged to do so at cost, effectively providing a humanitarian service to the world. So imagine the faux-outrage in some quarters from Astrazeneca’s sour opponents after the FTSE 100 drug maker announced plans to make a modest profit from future sales of the coronavirus jab.

The naysayers should save their breath. Having already produced something like 1bn jabs effectively for free, the company is surely entitled to monetise the programme at some point.

Although the virus is still prevalent in many parts of the world, rapid inoculation has turned the fight on its head. Covid-19 is no longer the threat it once was. The health emergency has passed and most developed countries at least are rightly trying to live with it.

A few zero-covid outliers remain, but they are on the wane. Even the high priest of lockdown, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, has been forced to concede that the virus can never be contained, and any attempts to do so would be economically ruinous.

China will discover this too in the coming months, with serious consequences for the rest of the world, unless it sharply changes tack.

Astrazeneca’s critics should bear some of the responsibility anyway. Would it be any surprise if their attacks had made Soriot question whether it was worth the personal abuse and the reputational harm to the company and hastened the move towards commercialisation?

Besides, there is plenty of good that can come from Astra’s change of heart. Though “a modest profit” will come from Covid jab sales to developed countries, the company will provide it to less advanced nations at cost.

Returns from one can be used to speed up supplies to the other, evening out the shocking disparity between inoculation rates in the West and poorer parts of the world as one effectively subsidises the other.

Alternatively those same profits can be directed towards other equally important parts of Astrazeneca’s operations. Though the statistics show that 5m have died from Covid worldwide, it is easy to forget that many more have quietly succumbed to other major diseases because their treatment was either delayed or stopped altogether in order to prioritise those infected with the virus.

Following years of criticism about its weak pipeline, Astra now boasts a series of potentially world-beating oncology drugs in late stage development including Enhertu for breast cancer and Lynparza for prostate cancer, as well as a rare diseases franchise after the £30bn takeover of American rival Alexion, and several treatments for serious respiratory diseases. Soriot cannot play missionary worker forever.

Breaking up isn’t so hard to do

First General Electric, now Johnson & Johnson, two corporate beasts of America. In the UK, FTSE 100 heavyweights GSK, and maybe Shell in the not-too-distant future, if Wall Street raider Dan Loeb gets his way.

Break-ups are back in fashion, raising questions about who will be targeted next by restless shareholders.

Is the mighty Unilever vulnerable? There are growing rumours that Nelson Peltz or another feared activist has the consumer goods giant in their sights.

You can see the logic: a £100bn company made up of three distinct businesses – food, personal care and household goods; a share price that has responded to a controversial redomicile by falling 20pc in the last year; and a chief in Alan Jope who some accuse of prioritising green issues at the expense of more pressing business matters.

It is vulnerable, but don’t expect it to go quietly. When Heinz bid for the company four years ago, Jope’s predecessor Paul Polman took it as an insult to its rich heritage and ordered his troops into the bunker.

Expect a similarly robust response if an opportunistic hedge fund turns up looking to make a quick buck.

‘Did the attacks have the effect of hastening the move to turning a profit?’