AstraZeneca Annual Report and Form 20-F Information 2008

“2008 has been a milestone year for our R&D organisation. We are discovering and developing effective medicines faster than ever before and the considerable progress we have made in reducing development cycle times and costs has been achieved without compromising on quality.

Our review of our disease area strategies and deployment of resources to the best opportunities led us to modify our therapeutic area strategy during the year and to stop discovery work in osteoarthritis to allow us to increase our commitment to biologics. Coupled with a productive licensing activity, we have now created a more balanced portfolio of high quality small molecule and biologics projects that present a strong platform for continued success in important areas of unmet medical need.

During 2008, we delivered eight significant regulatory packages in several jurisdictions to broaden the use of our marketed products, Seroquel, Symbicort, Iressa and FluMist; as well as two new product submissions for motavizumab and Onglyza^™. We have strengthened our mid-stage pipeline and maintained 10 projects in Phase III development. 32 projects entered the pipeline during the year and 44 projects were progressed to their next phase of development. We have a total of 144 projects in the pipeline – an increase of seven compared with 2007.

I believe that AstraZeneca is well placed to maintain this rate of progress, backed by our clear strategy for R&D, our drive for continuous improvement, and an R&D leadership committed to delivery of our scientific and commercial objectives.

JOHN PATTERSON CBE FRCP
Executive Director, Development