Pfizer chairman claims AstraZeneca takeover would be a 'win-win for society'

 
Takeover bid: Pfizer could buy out AstraZeneca

The chairman of US drug company Pfizer said the takeover of British-based AstraZeneca is a “win-win for society.”

Chief executive Ian Read said the £60-billion-plus deal would "liberate the balance sheet and tax" of both companies.

AstraZeneca has resisted approaches from the medical giant, but Pfizer executives have not given up hope of completing a deal - potentially the biggest foreign takeover of a British company.

Fears have been raised that resulting cost-cutting could cause the loss of thousands of highly-skilled jobs and undermine the UK's science base.

George Osborne said Pfizer had made assurances about its plans for jobs and science in the UK and he would take a "hard-nosed" approach to any deal.

The Chancellor told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have to make sure those are real promises that we can hold them to."

He added: "I'm also, on the specifics, prepared to get in the room and have a hard negotiation with very large companies and be very, very hard-nosed about what we want to deliver in terms of good British science and good British jobs."

Mr Osborne said it would be "extraordinary" not to have engaged with Pfizer and said it was a "massive error of judgment" by Labour leader Ed Miliband not to talk to the company.

In a series of videos posted on Pfizer's website, Mr Read, who is due to be grilled by two House of Commons' committees next week, said the proposed takeover was motivated by "three components of value", including combining some of the companies' products and improving efficiency.

"Governments are all around the world pressurising the industry to produce products of higher value and with more productivity, at lower cost," he said.

"So one way of doing that is to consolidate and is to take out overlapping functions."

One of the components of value is "the fact that it will liberate the balance sheet and tax of the combined companies", Mr Read said.

Mr Cameron told the Commons this week that Pfizer's assurances - including retaining at least 20% of the combined companies' research and development workforce in the UK for at least five years and basing its European HQ in Britain - were "encouraging", but he said he was "not satisfied" with them and wanted the firm to do more.

Mr Read and AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot will be questioned by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on Tuesday morning, before returning to the House of Commons on Wednesday to be quizzed by MPs on the Science and Technology Committee.

The science committee will also question Science Minister David Willetts about the Government's position.

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