Depending on the day of the week AstraZeneca is either Britain’s biggest or second biggest company listed on the London Stock Exchange. At the time of writing the giant pharma group is the second biggest, worth £179 billion, just a smidgeon behind Shell as the UK’s most valuable corporate. AstraZeneca is also one of the UK’s biggest employers, with a workforce of around 8,000, a tenth of its global headcount, and it supports another 41,000 jobs in the supply chains around its five sites. Thousands of private investors and pensioners benefit from its business with dividend income through their pension schemes.