The stakes are high – ministers must start fighting now to keep AstraZeneca's listing in London

It was an opportunity for Sir Pascal Soriot, as chief executive of AstraZeneca, the UK's finest pharmaceutical firm, to kill the story stone dead if he wished.

- Nils Pratley

It was an opportunity for Sir Pascal Soriot, as chief executive of AstraZeneca, the UK's finest pharmaceutical firm, to kill the story stone dead if he wished. Does he want to move the company's stock market listing to the US, as reported by the Times a few weeks ago? He declined to answer. Then he did something else: he turned his press conference after yesterday's half-year numbers into a declaration of love, more or less, for all things American.

"The US is the country in our industry where innovation is taking place," he said, noting that half the group's sales will be in the US by 2030. The new multibillionaire manufacturing facility in Virginia – part of a $50bn investment in the US over the next five years – had progressed to signoff in 33 days. The US administration is considering AstraZeneca's proposals for reducing medicine prices for Americans. "We are a very American company," said the French-Australian Soriot at one point, namechecking his various American senior colleagues.