Pfizer will ‘suck AZ’s lifeblood’
pharmafile | May 7, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Read, Soriot, bbd, cable, merger
A former boss of AstraZeneca has warned that he fears Pfizer “will act like a praying mantis and suck the lifeblood out of their prey” if the US firm’s putative £63 billion acquisition of the Anglo-Swedish company becomes a reality.
Sir David Barnes, who oversaw the merger of Astra and Zeneca in the late 1990s and was chief executive of AstraZeneca until 2000, told the BBC there is ‘no significant advantage’ to the deal and says he is concerned for the future of his old company.
Pfizer has committed itself to establishing the combined company’s corporate and tax residence in England – but Sir David said tax “is a very narrow basis on which to base such a massive task”.
“The risk is that the past history of Pfizer has shown that they tend to extract destructive synergies, they have done that in the past,” he went on.
There have been well-publicised concerns that the deal could put UK research in jeopardy, and a war of words is hotting up in the UK parliament at Westminster.
Executives from both companies are likely to be summoned to answer questions in front of two parliamentary select committees: science and technology, and business.
Business secretary Vince Cable said in the House of Commons yesterday that the government “is approaching it from the position of even-handed neutrality and recognises that this is ultimately a matter for the shareholders of both companies”.
In a letter this week to prime minister David Cameron, Pfizer’s chairman Ian Read made what he called a “series of significant and tangible commitments”. However, Labour leader Ed Miliband has accused the government of acting as a ‘cheerleader’ for Pfizer.
Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna took up this theme, telling the BBC: “The priority should be long-term investment and enhancing UK R&D, when many of the signs are that this deal is being driven by short-term concerns and not the long-term interest of a great British company and a key industrial sector.”
Cable said the government was “very alive to the national interest considerations” involved in the deal. He insisted: “We see the future of the UK as a knowledge economy, not as a tax haven.”
Cable added that the government could apply its ‘public interest test powers’ or even expand them when looking at the deal. “This would be a serious step and not one that should be taken lightly,” he said. “I am open-minded about it, but should stress that we are operating within serious European legal constraints.”
Adam Hill
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