Investment supports 2,600 jobs, including 300 highly skilled positions
AstraZeneca’s expansion aligns with Trump’s domestic manufacturing push
Announcement is part of drugmaker’s $50 billion investment
Nov 21 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca (AZN.L), opens new tab said on Friday it will invest $2 billion to expand its manufacturing footprint in Maryland as part of its previously announced $50 billion plan to expand manufacturing and research capabilities in the U.S. by 2030.
Global pharmaceutical companies have been ramping up investments in the United States to expand production capacity, following President Donald Trump’s call for the industry to make more medicines domestically instead of importing active ingredients or finished products.
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The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker’s $2 billion investment will help expand its biologics manufacturing facility in Frederick and construct a new state-of-the-art facility in Gaithersburg for the development and clinical supply of drugs to be used in trials.
This investment marks the fourth in AstraZeneca’s larger expansion plan, and will support 2,600 jobs across the two sites in Maryland, including the creation of 300 highly skilled jobs.
CEO Pascal Soriot has looked to balance Trump’s demands on the sector with a full listing of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, as well as a deal to lower drug prices for millions of Americans.
AstraZeneca’s Frederick facility currently produces biologics, a class of medications that come from living organisms and include a wide range of products such as vaccines and other therapies. These are used across AstraZeneca’s portfolio of cancer, autoimmune, respiratory and rare disease treatments.
The planned expansion will nearly double commercial manufacturing capacity, allowing increased supply of existing medicines and, for the first time, production across the company’s rare disease portfolio, AstraZeneca said, adding that it will create 200 highly skilled jobs and 900 construction roles.
Its new clinical manufacturing facility in Gaithersburg, which will be fully operational by 2029, will create an additional 100 jobs, retain 400 roles and support a further 1,000 construction-related jobs.
The drugmaker’s previous announcements included a new cell therapy manufacturing facility in Rockville, Maryland, a new drug substance manufacturing facility in Virginia and the expansion of its existing manufacturing facility in Coppell, Texas.
Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona
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November 21, 2025
Federal Reserve Board releases results of survey of senior financial officers at banks about their strategies and practices for managing reserve balances
For release at 2:00 p.m. EST
The Federal Reserve Board on Friday released results of a survey of senior financial officers at banks about their strategies and practices for managing reserve balances. The Senior Financial Officer Survey is used by the Board to obtain information about banks’ reserve balance management strategies and practices, their expectations for potential changes in both the size and composition of their balance sheets, their deposit pricing strategies, and their expectations around stablecoins and digital assets. The most recent survey was conducted in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between September 19, 2025, and September 29, 2025, and includes responses from banks that held around three-fourths of total banking system reserve balances at the time of the survey.
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Both headline and core inflation Japanese rose to 3.0% year-on-year in October (vs 2.9% in September, 3.0% market consensus). Food prices rose the most, 6.4%, while entertainment and transportation/communication also rose solidly by 2.6% and 3.6%, respectively. Utilities continued to rise as the government subsidy program ended.
On a monthly basis, inflation rose by 0.4% month-on-month, seasonally adjusted, driven by goods and services rising 0.3% and 0.4% each. Typically, companies adjust final prices in October, and they are clearly passing increased input costs on to consumers. This development is likely welcomed by the BoJ, which seeks a virtuous cycle between solid wage growth and sustained inflation.
Brigid DeCoursey Bondoc – FDA + Healthcare Regulatory and Compliance Partner, Morrison Foerster
Brigid is a food, drug, and medical device lawyer who counsels life sciences companies on a wide range of U.S. Food & Drug Administration pre- and post-market regulatory issues. As the lead of our FDA + Healthcare Regulatory and Compliance Group, Brigid practices across the spectrum of FDA-regulated products, including medical devices, drugs, biologics, cell and gene therapies, food, cosmetics, dietary supplements, tobacco, laboratory-developed tests, in vitro diagnostics, radiation-emitting electronic products, combination products, and products that may not fit neatly into any of these categories. Accordingly, she counsels established and start-up companies in life sciences, healthcare, and consumer products on a wide range of FDA pre- and post-market regulatory issues. Brigid also frequently advises innovative product developers on threshold FDA jurisdictional questions and develops strategies for approval and marketing, while identifying and mitigating regulatory risks.
Novo Nordisk (NVO, Financials) saw renewed attention after Denmark’s patient compensation authority approved payouts to four individuals who experienced vision loss while taking semaglutide-based drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. The patients were awarded a total of 800,000 Danish crowns following a specialist review. One additional claim was rejected.
The authority said the cases were complex because semaglutide has been linked in very rare situations to non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, a condition that can cause permanent vision loss. European regulators added NAION to product labels in June, noting it may occur in up to 1 in 10,000 patients.
Denmark’s compensation authority, which operates independently and is funded by the state, has received 43 claims related to alleged semaglutide-associated vision issues. The rulings do not assign legal liability to Novo Nordisk.
Semaglutide remains central to Novo Nordisk’s diabetes and weight-management portfolio, and demand for both medications remains elevated.
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 21 (Reuters) – A G20 draft leaders’ declaration includes references to “climate change” in defiance of U.S. objections, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The draft declaration was agreed ahead of this weekend’s summit in Johannesburg without U.S. input.
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U.S. President Donald Trump recently called climate change a “con job”, and has not sent a delegation to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil.
Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Aidan Lewis
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Item 1 of 3 Cannabis buds used to extract medicinal CBD oil are placed in a beaker as Kiara Cardoso, founder of DNA Solucoes em Biotecnologia, works, in Petrolina, Pernambuco, Brazil, February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kira Duarte/File Photo
[1/3]Cannabis buds used to extract medicinal CBD oil are placed in a beaker as Kiara Cardoso, founder of DNA Solucoes em Biotecnologia, works, in Petrolina, Pernambuco, Brazil, February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kira Duarte/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SAO PAULO, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Brazilian agricultural research agency Embrapa has received the greenlight from health agency Anvisa to research the cannabis plant, a landmark move that puts farming powerhouse Brazil a step closer towards authorizing its cultivation.
In an interview on Friday, Embrapa researcher Daniela Bittencourt welcomed Anvisa’s decision this week, which gives the agency unprecedented permission to build its first-ever cannabis seed bank and develop projects to genetically improve the plant for various applications.
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Embrapa will also research hemp used to produce fibers, Bittencourt said.
“This is only the beginning,” Bittencourt said by telephone from Brasilia. “Our plan is to carry out research for 12 years but it may possibly go on forever, like what happens with soy and corn.”
Similar research efforts from Embrapa since the 1970s opened up vast regions of Brazil for large-scale soybean farming, kicking off a significant increase in the country’s output of the oilseed to make it the world’s largest producer and exporter.
Embrapa scientists, who breed genetic varieties of grains, cotton and vegetables best suited for Brazil’s tropical climate, applied in September of 2024 for authorization from health agency Anvisa to carry out cannabis research.
Embrapa’s work may also grab international attention from cannabis companies, which have shown interest in Brazil’s potential for the development and domestic sale of medicinal and industrial cannabis products for a long time.
An initial 13 million reais ($2.41 million) in public funding will imminently be released to fund Embrapa’s cannabis research, Bittencourt said, adding the agency is open to studying the plant in partnership with the private sector.
Despite recent delays, Bittencourt also said she is confident that by March 2026, Anvisa will issue pending regulation for cannabis cultivation in Brazil after a court ruling obliged it to do so in November 2024.
In 2019, Anvisa had approved regulations for the rollout of medicinal cannabis products but in a separate vote blocked a proposal to allow domestic medical marijuana plantations.
In the decision authorizing Embrapa’s cannabis research, Anvisa said it is developing rules for growing cannabis “for medicinal and scientific purposes.”
Planting and selling recreational marijuana remains prohibited in Brazil, though purchasing and possessing up to 40 grams of marijuana for personal use is no longer a crime.
($1 = 5.3926 reais)
(This story has been corrected to say that Embrapa applied for authorization to conduct cannabis research in September 2024, not February 2024, in paragraph 6)
Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Richard Chang
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Ana Mano reports on agricultural commodities companies and markets in farming powerhouse Brazil, a crucial part of the Reuters’ global file. Based in São Paulo, she has covered the rise of ‘national meat champions’ JBS and Marfrig in the early 2000s, reported on Brazil’s logistics transformation to boost exports to China via northern ports, and more recently broke news on the threats to the Soy Moratorium, an industry pact credited with slowing soy-driven deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
