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By James Teague, VP, US Respiratory & Immunology and Infectious Diseases (formerly Vaccines & Immune Therapies)
As we approach the mid-point of the year and after celebrating Father’s Day this past weekend, I’ve been reflecting on what it means to work in healthcare at a time of such meaningful progress for patients. As a husband and father of an amazing 6-year-old daughter, the work we do feels especially poignant to me. Earlier this year, I shared my belief that AstraZeneca has a unique opportunity in the United States to translate our leadership in respiratory and immunology into measurable health impact for millions of people. Midway through 2026, that conviction has only strengthened. We are making meaningful progress against that ambition, driven by scientific advances across our growing portfolio and pipeline, strong execution across our business, and, most importantly, by keeping patients at the center of everything we do.
In 2026, our medicines have reached nearly 1.5 million patients, and we are well on our way toward our goal of reaching 3 million patients in 2026. That number represents more than treatment starts or prescriptions. It reflects people whose daily lives may be less disrupted by disease, families and caregivers carrying a lighter burden, and communities that are stronger when more people can work, care for loved ones, and participate more fully in life. For patients living with chronic respiratory and immune-mediated diseases, progress is deeply personal, and its impact extends far beyond the clinical setting.
That is why our focus remains urgent. Millions of people across the US continue to live with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and other serious conditions that are too often uncontrolled, underdiagnosed or treated too late. Our ambition remains the same as I outlined before: raise our focus from symptom control to disease modification, remission and, one day, a cure. What is encouraging is that we are seeing real momentum in the areas that matter most.
Just this year we’ve made tangible progress across our portfolio:
In lupus, we are driving new innovation to help empower patients to take more of their health into their own hands. In a disease area with high unmet need, advances that create more flexibility in how care can be delivered matter. This step-forward reflects the kind of patient-centered science we believe is essential: innovation not only in what treatment can do, but in how it can better fit into patients’ lives.
In COPD, our pipeline continues to show promise, including a strong Phase III results readout that met the primary endpoints and underscored the opportunity to address the underlying drivers of disease for patients who need better options. This is an area where the burden on patients, families and healthcare systems remains substantial, and where scientific progress has the potential to reshape expectations for care over time. The launch of AstraZeneca’s LungHealth, Unified campaign further underscores the commitment to an integrated lung care approach across COPD and lung cancer through policy and systemic partnerships.
In asthma, we are continuing to reimagine the foundation of care while advancing new possibilities for patients who remain uncontrolled. This year brought an important milestone with the approval of the first and only triple therapy for asthma in patients 12 and up, expanding on prior use in COPD and opening a new option for appropriate patients. Published Phase III results also showed statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in asthma compared with dual-combination inhaled corticosteroid and long-acting beta2-agonist medicines. This is the kind of progress that reinforces our belief that we can elevate standards of care across all levels of disease severity and intervene earlier in the patient journey.
More broadly, our progress this year reflects the strategy we set out at the start: strengthen the foundation of respiratory care, transform disease management by targeting upstream drivers of inflammation, innovate for patients who remain uncontrolled on standard of care, and advance the next wave of immunology for conditions with significant unmet need. We are also continuing to explore opportunities in areas such as expanded patient populations in uncontrolled asthma and hyper eosinophilic syndrome, all with the aim of bringing more personalized solutions to more patients sooner.
As I shared in a recent post, advancing healthcare goes beyond developing medicines. It requires us to work across the healthcare ecosystem to strengthen early identification and diagnosis, embed guideline-directed care into practice and expand access so that innovation can reach the people who need it. Breakthrough science only matters when it is delivered sustainably and made accessible. That is as true today as it was when I stepped into this role.
One of the most energizing parts of this year has been the opportunity to see this work up close across the US. Through conversations at congresses such as the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) and the American Thoracic Society (ATS), as well as time in the field with our teams, I have heard directly from physicians about how treatment is evolving in respiratory and immunology and how our medicines are helping change the trajectory of care for patients. Those conversations have reinforced for me that progress is not abstract. It is visible in clinical practice, in the confidence of healthcare providers and in the experiences of the people they treat.
As a father, I recognize that the work is never done. We still have more to do, and we remain ambitious by design. But the momentum we have built so far in 2026 gives me confidence that we are moving in the right direction. By staying focused on science, partnership and disciplined execution, we can continue to redefine what is possible for patients affected by respiratory and immunology and infectious diseases in the US.