In the absence of any new bids or hard news to report, the top guns in the media world on both sides of the Atlantic focused on the war of words now being fought between Pfizer ($PFE) and AstraZeneca ($AZN) over a proposed megamerger.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot scored a few points with his accusation that a takeover by Pfizer could wind up killing people--as the resulting R&D paralysis could freeze their vitally important work on new cancer therapies. Pfizer's Ian Read quickly rebutted that bit of corporate posturing with some grandstanding of his own.
"As we put these companies together, we will continue with our pipeline, AZ will continue with theirs," Read told lawmakers, according to a report from Reuters. "We would ringfence any important products and they would continue to be developed. There is absolutely no truth to any comment that some products of critical nature would be delayed getting to patients, if anything we would accelerate that to patients."
What I've found interesting, though, is that at this point of the megamerger game, it's hard to find anyone in the industry who believes Pfizer's repeated insistence that the combination of the two giants is being driven by their complementary science. It doesn't warrant serious consideration. For insiders, the only reasons that make any sense is the U.K.'s attractive tax rate and a chance for Pfizer to expand their portfolio of marketed therapies. R&D isn't going to be helped, and it's almost ridiculous to assert that it can be.
"It's a numbers game," scoffed one senior executive I talked with, echoing a very popular refrain. The phrase "reverse merger" also came up recently. No industry insider is going to win any points publicly attacking Pfizer, of course, but the industry sentiment against megamergers is impossible to ignore, particularly after Pfizer's massive cost-cutting campaign after the Wyeth buyout. -- John Carroll, editor-in-chief (email | Twitter)