Hints and tips:
...The US drugmaker has spent almost $30bn on acquisitions over the past two years, snapping up Arena Pharmaceuticals, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, Global Blood Therapeutics, ReViral and Trillium Therapeutics....
...Investors say Pfizer is in much better shape than when he took the top job in 2010, shortly after the company had completed the ill-fated acquisition of Wyeth for $68bn....
...The current version, mostly acquired with Wyeth in 2009, includes brands such as Centrum supplements and ChapStick....
...But it subsequently took on a new portfolio when it acquired Wyeth in 2010....
...A Louisiana doctor who has brought a series of whistleblower lawsuits against pharmaceuticals companies is in line for a windfall from Pfizer that would take his total payout from fraud settlements close...
...Martoma had obtained non-public information about an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s that was being developed by listed companies Elan and Wyeth....
...Before Pfizer bought Wyeth in 2009, the two companies employed 124,000 people. Pfizer now employs 78,000. Mr Read is quite right about maximising returns over the long run, though....
...In 2009, Pfizer paid $68bn to buy Wyeth. The buyer had revenues of $48bn; the target, $23bn....
...When Pfizer revealed its most recent mega-merger, the $68bn takeover of Wyeth in 2009, Jeffrey Kindler, then chief executive, hailed the deal as “a powerful opportunity to transform our industry”....
...The marriage between the makers of Viagra and Botox would, if consummated, create the world’s biggest pharmaceuticals group....
...“You do need critical mass in [core] therapeutic areas . . . but just being an enormous pharmaceuticals company is not the criteria.”...
...for $90bn in 2000 and Wyeth for $68bn in 2009, were formed....
...Since the start of last year, pharmaceuticals companies have agreed $462bn of mergers and acquisitions — greater than the gross domestic product of Austria....
...At the heart of debate over the future of AstraZeneca is a simple question: In whose hands would the pharmaceutical company’s laboratories produce the most valuable drugs?...
...Its last big deal, $68bn for Wyeth in 2009, began with $4bn in promised savings. After a merger, R&D can be held back by fear – of projects being cancelled or of staff being made redundant....
...Some analysts have expressed puzzlement over Pfizer’s move, which seems at odds with Mr Read’s efforts in recent years to slim down the group after a series of megadeals such as its $69bn takeover of Wyeth...
...AstraZeneca is not only important to Britain’s future as a leader in the pharmaceuticals industry....
...The writer is the FT’s pharmaceuticals correspondent...
...Yet the prospect of an activist-backed offer from Valeant Pharmaceuticals for Allergan and speculation over a potential $100bn bid by Pfizer for AstraZeneca suggests it may have been too soon to call an...
...For Pfizer, a deal would add to its history of megamergers, including its $69bn takeover of Wyeth in 2009 and its $111.8bn deal with Warner-Lambert in 2000....
...Pfizer has a history of big acquisitions, such as its $68bn takeover of Wyeth in 2009 and its $56bn deal with Pharmacia in 2002....
...But as the prospect of patent expiry threatened a sharp drop in sales, he too turned to a deal in 2009, acquiring Wyeth for $68bn to gain new “blockbusters” – notably Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis and...
...“Do we want our second-biggest pharmaceutical firm to become an instrument of tax planning in a tax planning game?”...
...Cost savings from its last big deal – the takeover of Wyeth in 2009 – are difficult to measure, as is so often the case for anyone trying to analyse the consequences of a deal....
...We have been presented this week with two visions for the future of innovation in the pharmaceuticals industry. One is encouraging, the other is not....
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