Pascal Soriot

Executive Director and CEO AstraZeneca

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Sir Pascal Soriot has run AstraZeneca since 1 October 2012, making him one of the longest-serving chief executives in global pharmaceuticals and the architect of what is generally treated as the industry’s most complete turnaround. He inherited a company with a thinning pipeline, a patent cliff and a falling share price, cut the cost-reduction reflex, and spent heavily on research, concentrating on oncology and on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus site that is now the group’s headquarters. He was the public face of the 2014 defence against Pfizer’s takeover approach, of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine supplied at no profit during the pandemic, and most recently of the company’s move to a harmonised listing structure, with its ordinary shares directly listed on the New York Stock Exchange from February 2026 alongside London and Stockholm. He remains in post: a filing of 18 September 2026 records him buying 60,000 AstraZeneca shares.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer of AstraZeneca since 1 October 2012, appointed in August that year, and Executive Director on the board.
• Completed AstraZeneca’s direct listing of ordinary shares and US debt securities on the NYSE, effective after market close on 30 January 2026, with trading from 2 February and the Nasdaq ADSs withdrawn; shareholders can now trade across the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Stockholm and the NYSE under the ticker AZN.
• Redirected the company from short-term cost cutting to long-run research investment, rebuilding an oncology franchise that became the core of its growth.
• Led the COVID-19 vaccine programme, distributed at no profit during the pandemic and at scale into lower-income countries.
• Knighted in 2022 for his contribution to life sciences and his leadership of the pandemic response.
• Class I director of Agilent Technologies, Inc., with a term running to 2028.
• Previously Chief Operating Officer of Roche’s pharmaceuticals division and Chief Executive Officer of Genentech.

Professional Journey

Soriot trained as a veterinarian, taking a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree before an MBA at HEC Paris – an unusual route into the industry, and one he has said gives him a scientific instinct alongside a commercial one. He entered pharmaceuticals in 1987 as a district sales manager at Roussel Uclaf, then France’s second-largest drug maker, and worked up through it to Divisional Global Marketing Director by 1994 and then a general management posting in Australia after Hoechst acquired the business. The successor entities carried him upward: senior commercial roles at Aventis, including Head of Global Marketing and Medical Affairs, and then Chief Operating Officer of Aventis and Sanofi Aventis in the United States.

He moved to Roche and in 2009 became Chief Executive Officer of Genentech, immediately after Roche completed its full acquisition of the biotech – a delicate integration assignment, since Genentech’s scientific culture was the asset being bought. In 2010 he stepped up to Chief Operating Officer of Roche’s pharmaceuticals division, running the whole commercial pharma business of the world’s largest oncology company.

AstraZeneca recruited him in August 2012 and he took office on 1 October. The company was then widely written off: its pipeline was thin, blockbuster patents were expiring, and the strategy had narrowed to cost control. Soriot reversed that, raising research spending and betting the company on oncology, immuno-oncology and biologics. The bet was tested almost immediately. In 2014 Pfizer made a takeover approach valuing AstraZeneca at around £69 billion; Soriot and chair Leif Johansson rejected it, arguing the offer undervalued a pipeline the market could not yet see. The defence made his reputation and set the standard against which his tenure has been judged.

The pandemic gave the company a global role it had not sought. AstraZeneca partnered with the University of Oxford on a viral-vector COVID-19 vaccine and committed to supplying it at no profit for the duration of the pandemic, which made it the dominant vaccine across much of the developing world and also exposed the company to intense political and regulatory pressure in Europe over supply schedules and safety signals. He was knighted in 2022 for his contribution to life sciences and that leadership.

More recently the focus has been structural. On 29 September 2025 AstraZeneca announced a shareholder-approved plan to harmonise its listing structure, and on 20 January 2026 it gave notice of the voluntary withdrawal from Nasdaq of its American Depositary Shares and its US-listed debt securities. The direct listing of ordinary shares and debt on the New York Stock Exchange took effect after market close on 30 January 2026, with trading from 2 February, leaving shareholders able to deal in the same ordinary shares on three exchanges. Soriot rang the NYSE opening bell on 5 June 2026 to mark the transfer. Alongside the executive role he sits on the board of Agilent Technologies as a Class I director.

Education

École nationale vétérinaire d’Alfort

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine

HEC Paris

Master of Business Administration