The world’s biggest drugmaker plans to shut its Havant site, which packs more than 85m doses of vaccines and injectable products a year, and to move the work to Puurs in Belgium, but says the move is not related to Brexit.

It has vowed to keep its Sandwich site near Ramsgate, which makes medicines for Pfizer clinical trials worldwide. Pfizer, which is stockpiling drugs as instructed by the UK government, estimates it will incur one-off Brexit costs of $100m (£78m) including changes to clinical trials.

The world’s biggest drugmaker plans to shut its Havant site, which packs more than 85m doses of vaccines and injectable products a year, and to move the work to Puurs in Belgium, but says the move is not related to Brexit.

It has vowed to keep its Sandwich site near Ramsgate, which makes medicines for Pfizer clinical trials worldwide. Pfizer, which is stockpiling drugs as instructed by the UK government, estimates it will incur one-off Brexit costs of $100m (£78m) including changes to clinical trials.