AstraZeneca Annual Report and Form 20-F Information 2008

Strengthening our pipeline

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 safety and quality.

During 2008, we made eight significant regulatory submissions across several jurisdictions to broaden the use of our marketed products Seroquel, Symbicort, Iressa and FluMist, as well as two new product submissions for motavizumab, an improved anti-respiratory syncytial virus monoclonal antibody, and Onglyza^™, for treating Type 2 diabetes. We have strengthened our mid-stage pipeline and now have 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 now have a total of 144 projects within a balanced pipeline of small molecule and biological products. This compares with 137 projects in 2007.

We also continue to pursue high quality external opportunities to enhance further our in-house capabilities and have completed over 40 major deals in the last two years. These deals have increased the quality and size of our pipeline and improved the prospects of consistently launching more new medicines each year as the pipeline matures.