Arise, Sir Soriot! AstraZeneca's chief knighted in honor of pharma's COVID battle

AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot has been knighted in the U.K. as a recognition of the U.K. pharma’s work on a COVID vaccine.

Now Sir Pascal Soriot, the Australian AZ chief was given the honor in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2022. He has helmed the company since 2012 and took over amid a tumultuous time as R&D setbacks and questions over management saw the company in the crosshairs of U.S. pharma giant Pfizer.

But Soriot, 63, steered AZ into independent waters and helped ride out the tumult. In 2020, when COVID hit, the company swiftly developed a new vaccine against the virus, though it was largely overshadowed by rival mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

Still, the U.K. used AZ’s shot, called Vaxzevria, from late 2020, which helped dramatically lower the risk of severe disease and death in the elderly, and many other countries around the world did the same, which is why Soriot was given the knighthood.

It’s not been smooth sailing for its vaccine, however. The company had initially set the COVID shot to be used at cost, though it had to rethink that path last year. There have also been safety concerns associated with its shot, notably the risk of a rare type of blood clot. In fact, many countries limited Vaxzevria's use in older adults.

AZ has not racked in the tens of billions of dollars that its rival mRNA companies have for their shot, and initially in late 2020/early 2021, the company’s rep was in fact hit by poor communication over the exact efficacy numbers for its vaccine and there was a strange political element in Europe where some leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, called the vaccine “quasi-ineffective.”

Vaxzevria has also not been given any form of approval in the U.S. and left some analysts questioning whether AZ would have been better off not bothering to develop the vaccine at all.

But AstraZeneca has seen better luck with its COVID drug Evusheld, which was late last year given the FDA green light as a preventive therapy in certain patients.

“I am truly humbled by this recognition,” Sir Pascal Soriot said in a statement. “Growing up in France, I had many dreams and hopes for the future, but I never thought I would receive a knighthood from Her Majesty the Queen.

“As an Australian citizen, it is a great privilege to receive this award and an honor to work with so many outstanding people around the world dedicated to following the science in order to bring medicines to patients.

“This recognition is also theirs, and I would like to thank each of them for their commitment to our mission. I am also grateful to my family for their support in enabling me to pursue a career doing what I love.”

Soriot's knighthood comes just weeks after Moderna’s CEO, Stephane Bancel, received the chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, what is in essence a French knighthood, also in recognition of his work against COVID. This also comes a decade after Sir Andrew Witty, the former CEO of GSK, received a British knighthood for services to the economy and to the U.K. pharmaceutical industry.