British Big Pharma GSK is welcoming President Donald Trump to the U.K. with a hefty gift: a five-year, $30 billion planned investment in U.S. R&D and manufacturing.
The funds are set to be spread across GSK’s U.S. supply chain, the company announced in a Sept. 17 release, alongside domestic drug discovery R&D and clinical development operations. During the five-year investment period, the U.S. is expected host more of GSK’s clinical trials than anywhere else in the world, the drugmaker added.
The planned American venture includes $1.2 billion earmarked for advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and digital technologies, according to the release. That means beginning construction next year on a new biologics "flex" factory in Upper Merion, Pennsylvania, and expanding AI capabilities at the company's five manufacturing sites in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maryland and Montana.
That $1.2 billion will also support improved drug substance manufacturing and assembly of devices and auto-injectors, GSK said.
GSK last invested in its Pennsylvania operations back in October 2024, telegraphing plans to double the size and capacity of its production site in Marietta, Pennsylvania, with an $800 million outlay. Together, GSK's investments over the past year are expected to generate hundreds of full-time and temporary construction jobs, the company said.
“Alongside the many longstanding and vital shared interests that connect the U.K. and the United States, is advancing life sciences to get ahead of disease,” GSK’s CEO Emma Walmsley said in the release. “This week’s state visit brings together two countries that have led the world in science and healthcare innovation. We are proud to be part of both.”
The U.S. has enjoyed a surge of pharma investment in the wake of the Trump administration's import tariff threats, with Roche pledging to spend $50 billion, Johnson & Johnson unveiling a $55 billion plan that includes bolstering its medtech business, and Sanofi and Novartis each committing to spend at least $20 billion in the U.S. by the end of the decade.
And Eli Lilly recently announced that Goochland County, Virginia, will be the site of its new $5 billion manufacturing plant—the first of four that the Indianapolis drugmaker has planned as part of its own $27 billion U.S. pledge.
In contrast, GSK’s home across the pond has fared much worse over the past week. After Merck & Co. revealed Sept. 10 that it will cancel R&D operations in the U.K., including plans for a 1 billion pound sterling ($1.36 billion) R&D center in London, a suite of other pharmas followed suit.
Eli Lilly is now rethinking its plan for a London biotech incubator, Sanofi has frozen its U.K. R&D investment decisions and AstraZeneca is reassessing a planned Cambridge expansion worth 200 million pounds (about $273 million).
Leaders from Merck and AstraZeneca were grilled by British lawmakers over their companies’ U.K. R&D pullbacks on Sept. 16.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry also weighed in on the issue earlier this month, cautioning in a pair of reports that the country has allowed its attractiveness to life sciences investors to wane.
Meanwhile, unlike fellow Brit AstraZeneca, GSK is standing pat in its home country, Walmsley said in the release.
“Here in the U.K., we continue to invest in a significant manufacturing base and more than £1.5 billion in R&D every year,” Walmsley said.