By Alex Barker in Brussels and Andrew Ward and Elizabeth Rigby in London, Source: Newspaperword count:411
Sweden’s finance minister has raised new questions over Pfizer’s commitment to keeping science jobs in Europe if it buys AstraZeneca, saying it failed to live up to promises made when it bought Swedish drugmaker Pharmacia more than a decade ago.
As the UK drug company stepped up its defence against its larger US rival’s £63bn approach, Anders Borg said Pfizer’s record in Sweden made him “sceptical” about its plans for AstraZeneca’s research operations in the UK and Sweden.
Mr Borg’s comments contrast with the cautiously positive attitude of Downing Street, which last week welcomed a commitment from Pfizer to keep 20 per cent of the combined companies’ R&D workforce in the UK after any deal with AstraZeneca.
“We are worried,” Mr Borg said. “The experience from Sweden when Pfizer took over Pharmacia was that they made some very strong commitments to research presence in Sweden . . . We can only come to the conclusion that they scaled down and focused on cost reduction.”
His intervention came as UK politicians stepped up their scrutiny of the proposed deal, with executives from Pfizer and AstraZeneca to be questioned by lawmakers in two separate hearings by the parliamentary committees on business and science.
George Osborne, the UK chancellor, denied claims by the opposition Labour party that the government was acting as a “cheerleader” for Pfizer. “Our sole interest here is in securing good jobs in Britain, good manufacturing jobs, good science jobs.” He added that ministers would back “any arrangement that delivers that for Britain”.
Mr Borg said that the take-over battle could provoke debate over whether EU legislation is needed to safeguard Europe’s science base from takeovers involving “cutting costs and gaming taxes”.
AstraZeneca was created through a merger of UK and Swedish companies in 1999 and has facilities in Gothenburg and Södertälje, near Stockholm.
Some in the UK government have cited Pfizer’s plan to shift its tax domicile to Britain in the event of a merger as vindication of measures to make the country more attractive to foreign investors. But Mr Borg said Europe should be “very cautious” of deals driven by tax incentives.
Pfizer said it was “premature to speculate” on the “location of specific R&D operations” but lauded AstraZeneca’s “world class science and scientists”. The company declined to comment on the Pharmacia deal.
AstraZeneca launched a counter-offensive setting an aggressive target to increase revenues by more than three-quarters in the next decade as it develops new treatments for cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. (FT)
- Latest
- Trending
