We’ve chosen to build this new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Virginia because of its strong, skilled base and its life science and advanced manufacturing capabilities. Life science was super-important in our decision-making. We know going into Virginia, we’ve got a significant pool of capabilities and talent to dip into.

Atwal: Was there anything about Virginia’s approach when we first spoke that surprised you or set Virginia apart from our peer regions?

Cheng: We often talk about “AZ Speed” within our company because we’re in the business of innovative medicines to help people live longer, live healthier, and save lives. Speed is of the utmost importance for us. As we’ve gone into the collaboration with Virginia, we started developing this notion of “Virginia Speed.” Virginia really surprised us on how fast the government can move — the rapid decision-making, motivation, and sense of urgency to do everything you guys can to build a better future with innovative medicine for the local community, and in this case, for American people.

Atwal: “Virginia Speed” was born out of our work with you, and how incredibly open, transparent, and quick you are in responding. We wanted to match that and move at your pace. How does this Virginia facility fit into AstraZeneca’s global manufacturing and innovation network? What strategic capabilities will this site enable or unlock for your future pipeline?

Cheng: We have big hopes and dreams for this new facility. We envision focusing on a couple of things, one of which is active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs. That’s the active part of the medicines we manufacture. Primarily for weight management and metabolic therapies, I would say, that’s the initial goal, including innovative medicines like oral GLP-1, baxdrostat, which is an innovative new paradigm on hypertension treatment, oral PCSK9. This is really about cholesterol management, potential combination products, and next generations of medicine that would ultimately transform millions of patients’ life in the United States and beyond.

The site would also make a very innovative product called the Antibody Drug Conjugate, or ADC, and the conjugation parts of that medicine we intend to make in this facility for our cancer portfolio.

Atwal: You spoke about resilience, with API production being such an important part of that. What does it say about how you’re thinking differently going into the future?

Cheng: We also doubled down on more intelligent and connected systems, a connected network, if you will. We’re talking about autonomous manufacturing, AI-driven supply chains, and proximity to scientific innovation that have all that stuff come together in one facility.

AstraZeneca is committing $50 billion to expand our U.S. manufacturing R&D footprint through 2030. This is a significant part of the $50 billion. With these investments, we’re bringing critical manufacturing closer to the communities we serve, in this case, for American patients, and to strengthen supply chain resilience in the United States.

Atwal: If you had an early-career professional in front of you who might one day seek to lead a mission-driven life sciences company like AstraZeneca, what would you tell them to focus their time and attention on?

Cheng: I often start with, “Once upon a time, I was a new university graduate chemical engineer, bright-eyed, motivated.” People ask me, “How did you get to where you are today?” and I say, “The first thing that comes to mind is I have natural curiosity on everything.” It’s having courage to raise your hand to say, “Hey, I want to learn. I don’t know about this.”

Being curious and courageous are the two attributes that are applicable, no matter the culture, no matter the background of young talents. Say, “Be like a sponge, absorb, learn, increase your substance, embrace that technology, be okay with being uncomfortable.”

The other thing is that as talents grow, going from highly capable technical talent, individual contributor to people leader, you’ve got to make sure you’re combining deep expertise with lots of humility and willingness to listen, to support and grow your people.

Last is reaching out and seeking out diversity. This goes beyond the color of our skin and the language we speak. It’s about diversity of thought, experience, and background. I’m a fundamental believer when we have diversity in an organization, in a team, you work better. Better things come out of partnership, out of collaboration, and you end up in a better place with better decisions when you have diverse backgrounds, experiences, and expertise.

Atwal: Competence is just the entry point. It’s that need to be curious and mission-driven, and to make way in your career with that in mind.

Cheng: What we learned in school, two years ago, five years ago, it becomes obsolete so quickly, especially in technology. Generative AI was only a couple of years ago, and now there’s agentic AI, autonomous AI. It’s completely and fundamentally shifting our learning mindsets.

Atwal: How did Virginia’s workforce, from the engineers to the technicians to their research talent, influence your decision to be here?

Cheng: Talent was a major factor. We selected Virginia because of its deep engineering, technical, and scientific talent pool in the life science space. Virginia sits within a broader ecosystem of educational institutions and training programs that produce quite highly capable professionals, so that was very attractive to us. This workforce foundation is super-critical to build sophisticated manufacturing operations and ensure the long-term growth of our people pipeline.

Atwal: We’re very proud in Virginia to constantly be recognized as the top state for education. We have a very educated, diverse workforce. I know you at AstraZeneca greatly value being part of the community and making broader impact. How is your proximity to the University of Virginia going to shape how you partner with Virginia’s universities and community colleges to help build workforce programs for a next generation of biomanufacturing talent?

Cheng: We hope to be an integral part of Virginia’s ecosystem of talent development and education. We’ve committed up to $120 million of private industry investment alongside Eli Lilly and Merck to develop what we call the Virginia Center for Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing. This is going to create the largest workforce development center for advanced manufacturing in Virginia, working together with educational institutions such as UVA, the Virginia Community College System, and Virginia Tech, among many others. The aim is to produce anywhere between 2,000 to 2,500 highly trained professionals each year.

I wish this could be replicated everywhere we operate, because the workforce of today doesn’t equate to the workforce of tomorrow. Having a program like this, we can continuously, progressively train the next generations of talent. I think this becomes a pipeline not only feeding AstraZeneca, but the life science ecosystem within Virginia.

AstraZeneca

Atwal: How do you think about Albemarle County, the broader Charlottesville area community? What do you envision as your partnership with them?

Cheng: We believe that a healthier future for individuals, for the local environment, can’t just come from medicines alone. We need to make sure we invest in communities as well. This is why across our entire global network, we always make a commitment to support communities and the organizations that serve them.

We allow the sites to customize their support programs based on community needs. We’ve got a number of programs in place where we give back through investment activities, employee involvement, volunteerism, and donations that align with community needs.

Atwal: Five or 10 years from now, when you’re fully settled, I wonder if you can help us envision what success for AstraZeneca looks like in Virginia and how that might evolve as the ecosystem grows.

Cheng: The most immediate is let’s build this state-of-the-art facility at Virginia speed and AZ speed and start commissioning and qualifying it to make medicines for cancer, weight management, diabetes, and metabolics. That’s driving a lot of our activities, and preparing the talent pipeline to ensure we’re ready for it.

As a company, we have a strategy called Ambition 2030. It encompasses significant growth in our portfolio across multiple disease states, investments in disruptive innovation that are going to shape the future of medicine, prioritizing community and health system resilience. So, these overarching commitments we’ve made as part of Ambition 2030 won’t change as we proceed toward 2030 and beyond, and they will carry over to how we shape our growth within the community.

Atwal: AstraZeneca is operating in a period of rapid scientific advancement that coincides with geopolitical and market uncertainty. From your unique vantage point, what gives you greatest confidence in AstraZeneca’s long-term outlook?

Cheng: Part of our Ambition 2030 strategy is to achieve $80 billion in total revenue by 2030, and we expect 50% of that to be in the United States. So, this is a strategically important market for AstraZeneca. We have strong growth momentum due to the strength of our catalyst-rich pipeline across oncology, biopharmaceuticals, and rare disease.

We’re very optimistic about our bright future. Revenue of $80 billion is super-important for our shareholders and the company. But for me, I translate this to the number of doses of medicine we’re going to make. And ultimately the millions of patients around the world that billions of doses will truly make a difference in their lives. That’s what we look forward to. And that’s what motivates me, 17,000 colleagues within global manufacturing, and 90,000-plus employees within AstraZeneca every day.

What a privilege to be in these roles in companies like AstraZeneca, because we get up every morning not to do just any job. We do a job that ultimately saves patients’ lives or helps them live healthy lives. That, to us, is priceless.

Atwal: What a wonderful way to end our conversation. I agree with you. I think our health is our wealth, and that is really the end of it for all of us, if we can maintain it. There’s nothing else in life.

We’re excited to have many more conversations with you and your team. But for now, thank you for speaking with me today.

Cheng: You’re welcome. Thank you for the invitation.

For the full interview, visit www.vedp.org/Podcasts