The row over [b]Pfizer’s[/b] £63bn takeover bid for the British drugs company [b]AstraZeneca[/b] has intensified as the predator’s own former top scientist railed against the way the US firm’s takeovers destroy research teams and stop the creation of new medicines, reports [s]The Independent[/s]. After retiring as president of global research and development at Pfizer after 30 years’ service, Dr John LaMattina published a paper declaring: ‘In major mergers today, not only are R&D cuts made, but entire research sites are eliminated. Nowhere is this more evident than with Pfizer.’ Significantly, he said such ‘devastating’ mergers should ‘be concerning to patients’, as well as doctors, taxpayers and other stakeholders, ‘particularly bearing in mind recent cutbacks in areas of research such as antibacterial drugs and neuroscience’.
[link url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/exclusive-pfizer-insider-warns-that-takeover-of-astrazeneca-could-be-devastating-9318884.html]Full report in The Independent[/link]
[link url=http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n8/full/nrd3514.html?WT.ec_id=NRD-201108]Nature Reviews Drug Discovery comment [/link]
[link url=http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina]Forbes comment[/link]