Speaking to the BBC from the firm’s central London headquarters, Dame Emma said she would not “shy away” from GSK’s investment plans for the US, where it makes more than half of its turnover.
The US is “still the leading market in the world in terms of the launches of new drugs and vaccines,” she said. And alongside China, it was “the best market in the world to do business development,” she added.
GSK’s latest stateside investment drive followed US pharmaceutical company Merck – which is called MSD in Europe – scrapping a planned £1bn expansion of its UK operations.
UK drug maker AstraZeneca has also announced it is pausing a planned £200m investment in a Cambridge research facility while ploughing tens of billions of dollars into the US.
Other drug companies have also said there is little appetite to invest in the UK which successive governments have insisted is a life sciences superpower.