Words by Isabel O’Brien
Pfizer and AstraZeneca, two titans of the pharmaceutical industry, have set their sights on France with major investments totalling nearly 1bn (USD) ahead of the country’s annual ‘Choose France’ business summit.
For Pfizer, the decision to invest €500m (538.5m USD) in France is driven by a desire to expand its research and development capabilities in the country. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca intends to spend 388m (USD) to strengthen its existing operations and site in Dunkirk – its hub for the production of inhaled devices.
The investments were announced by President Macron’s office ahead of the summit, which begins today (13 May 2024) at the Palace of Versailles, and aims to burnish Paris’ reputation as a leading European business centre and encourage investment in the nation.
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is also investing more at home, pledging more than €1bn (1.1bn USD) to create new capacity and jobs at three major sites in the country. These include its R&D site in Vitry-sur-Seine in Paris, which specialises in innovative molecules and cancer research.
With these and other investments from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon, the summit is said to have attracted more than €15bn worth of investment to France, according to the French presidency. This is an increase on last year, when the country attracted around €13bn.
While the increase will be welcomed news for President Macron, Paris still lags behind other major cities such as New York and London in the global financial centre stakes. While the US and UK cities ranked first and second respectively in the latest Z/Yen financial centre survey of March 2024, Paris ranked 14th.
