Engineering news
Executives from Pfizer have defended the proposed £63 billion takeover of AstraZeneca to a committee of MPs.
The science and technology committee took evidence from Pfizer executives and universities and science minister David Willetts. Dr Mikael Dolsten, president, worldwide R&D, Pfizer, said that the potential deal offered “a lot of opportunities”.
He said: “You can see a powerhouse of science coming together. We have an aspiration to provide a much better outcome for patients. The combination of drugs and products on the market offer a much better combination.”
Dolsten said the proposed deal was not about diversification but would benefit from complementary product offerings from the two pharmaceutical giants. They have complementary drugs for treating lung cancer, for example.
The MPs asked if the UK science base “would be diminished by this takeover”? They said there could be job cuts at Astra Zeneca and a reduction in R&D spending. “I suspect the sum of the two would have less scientists,” admitted Pfizer chairman and chief executive Ian Read. Committee chair Andrew Miller asked if R&D spending could be “maintained as the sum of the two parts at the very least”?
Read said Pfizer was operating in “an extremely competitive environment where governments around the world were requiring us to be more productive and more efficient”. Research had to generate enough returns to reinvest in subsequent programmes, he said. “Without cashflow to reinvest in research there are no products,” he said.
AstraZeneca submitted information to the business, innovation and skills committee earlier this week that suggested the proposed £63 billion takeover could delay the delivery of drugs. But Willetts said shareholders should not be “pessimistic” about the proposed deal. AstraZeneca has said it one of only a handful of biopharmaceutical companies to span the entire value chain of a medicine from discovery to late-stage development. manufacturing and distribution. It is active in the area of cardiovascular disease and diabetes; oncology; respiratory diseases; inflammation and autoimmune disease. AstraZeneca is part of the so-called 'golden triangle' of life sciences research in London, Cambridge and Oxford.
Read emphasised that Pfizer understood why it was important for the UK to maintain its science base. He said the company would “look to avoid site closures” in Britain. He added that it was important that the proposed merger featured “a commonality of strategy” between the two firms. Changes in government and the cost of pharmaceuticals in the US and UK would entail reassessment of what resources were deployed in either country, Read said.
Dolsten said the company had had talks with the Wellcome Trust and other organisations in the scientific golden triangle. “As we are able to share information we need to continue the dialogue about how the science base may flourish in the future.”
The GMB union said at the end of April that the approach by Pfizer was “hostile”. “What we face here is a hostile approach by US company to eventually migrate these well-paid UK based manufacturing and R&D to the Far East which should be blocked,” the union said.
Read admitted that “any change will create anxiety”. “We are interacting with scientists and will inform them of our plans.” Dolsten said there would be a “better output from science in the UK in the future” if the deal went through.