▍AstraZeneca's China oncology business organizational structure is about to be adjusted
According to multiple sources in the industry, the organizational structure of AstraZeneca's China oncology business will be adjusted from January 1, 2025.
The specific adjustments are as follows:
First, the oncology business will establish four independent and collaborative business units/business units: lung cancer business unit, urogynecology and digestive oncology business unit, breast cancer business unit, and blood oncology business unit;
Second, the marketing department and sales team
At the same time as the structural adjustment, the executive team has also undergone certain changes---Zhang Lingyan: currently AstraZeneca China Vice President, Oncology Business Lung Cancer Business Unit and Gastrointestinal Oncology Business Head, will transfer and lead the Urogynecology and Gastrointestinal Oncology Business Unit, serve as AstraZeneca China Vice President, Oncology Business Urogynecology and Gastrointestinal Oncology Business Head; Breast Cancer Business Head: This position is recruited internally and externally, and is currently temporarily held by Guan Dongmei, General Manager of AstraZeneca China Oncology Business. In addition to the above positions, other management positions have also been adjusted accordingly.

At the beginning of December, AstraZeneca just adjusted the positions of many members of the Chinese management team; in June this year, AstraZeneca's Chinese oncology team was also adjusted, that is, from July 1, the county-level oncology team will be split and reorganized and integrated into the lung cancer business unit and the urology, gynecology and female oncology business unit.

Specifically, with a series of adjustments in the oncology business segment, AstraZeneca has focused more on core tumors such as lung cancer and breast cancer. At the same time, the importance and contribution of digestive tract tumors and blood tumors in its oncology business map are increasing day by day.

Today, with the continuous changes in the market, AstraZeneca China has adjusted its structure in the oncology field again.

▍After a series of adjustments, how will AstraZeneca's oncology sector develop?
Oncology is recognized as the most valuable treatment field and is also regarded as a "gold-making place". For this reason, MNCs have flocked to this popular track and produced blockbuster products frequently. AstraZeneca is no exception. As AstraZeneca's core segment, its oncology business has covered multiple fields such as lung cancer, breast cancer, gastrointestinal tumors, and blood tumors. The series of oncology pipelines account for half of AstraZeneca's business.

In the first three quarters of 2024, AstraZeneca's revenue was approximately US$39.182 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19%. The revenue of the oncology business was nearly US$16 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22%, accounting for nearly 40.8% of the total revenue. From the perspective of subdivided tumor types, lung cancer and breast cancer are AstraZeneca's most advantageous areas. Especially in the field of lung cancer, AstraZeneca has a number of blockbuster products such as osimertinib (third-generation EGFR-TKI), de trastuzumab (antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)), and durvalumab (PD-L1 inhibitor).

De trastuzumab for injection is regarded as an innovative light for breast cancer treatment. It successfully entered this year's medical insurance negotiations. It is currently the first and only ADC drug approved in China for the treatment of HER2-mutated advanced non-small cell lung cancer. However, although these products are developing rapidly, they still cannot avoid fierce market competition. For example, in the field of EGFR inhibitors, AstraZeneca's osimertinib needs to compete with similar products such as ametinib and vometinib, which have their own advantages in terms of price, efficacy, safety, etc. In the field of oncology, in addition to self-developed drugs, AstraZeneca continues to enrich its product pipeline through cooperative development, joint research, global licensing cooperation, etc.

On September 5, AstraZeneca China announced that it had reached a clinical research cooperation agreement with Jiangsu Hailai Xinchuang Medical Technology. The two parties will combine the results of preclinical studies to jointly conduct clinical studies on the application of AstraZeneca's immune checkpoint inhibitors combined with Hilai's newly created electric field therapy in solid tumors such as digestive tract tumors represented by biliary malignancies; In May, AstraZeneca reached a cooperation agreement with Nona Bio (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harbour Biopharma), and Nona Bio licensed a preclinical tumor-targeted monoclonal antibody new drug to AstraZeneca. The total amount of this transaction reached US$604 million; Lung cancer is the malignant tumor with the highest incidence and mortality in China. AstraZeneca expects that by 2030, more than 10 tumor blockbuster products and more than 80 new indications will be launched in China.

▍Multinational pharmaceutical companies are doing "addition and subtraction" in their development in China, and the reasons behind the changes are different
In order to cope with the constant changes in the Chinese market, not only AstraZeneca, but many multinational pharmaceutical companies have been doing addition and subtraction in the Chinese market.
For example, multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Novo Nordisk and Bayer are adding projects in China. In March this year, Novo Nordisk continued to expand its production capacity and announced an investment of about 4 billion yuan in Tianjin to build a sterile preparation expansion project; on May 21, Bayer Consumer Healthcare and Qidong Municipal Government signed a contract in Qidong, Jiangsu. Bayer will invest in the construction of a new Bayer Consumer Healthcare Qidong Supply Center in Qidong, with an investment of 600 million yuan in the first phase. It is expected that the new supply center will be put into production in 2028.

On the contrary, some multinational pharmaceutical companies have already reduced their operations in the Chinese market. For example, the Japanese pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin announced that it would reorganize its business in the Asia-Pacific region and transfer all the shares of its Chinese subsidiary Kyowa Kirin (China) Pharmaceutical to Hong Kong Weijian Pharmaceutical Group for 720 million yuan. As an important part of the global market, multinational pharmaceutical companies adjust their business in China with considerations of the Chinese market and the implementation of global strategies. In order to combat the downward pressure on the economy, many multinational pharmaceutical companies have shed their burdens and divested non-core assets, and their businesses in China are no exception; returning to the Chinese market, as volume-based procurement is firmly promoted, multinational pharmaceutical companies have to accelerate product iteration and re-select channels, which may follow adjustments to the organizational structure and resource allocation under a new market logic.

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