Pfizer/Wyeth
On January 26 Pfizer Inc agreed to acquire Wyeth for $45 billion in cash and about $23 billion in stock. The deal was driven by the upcoming 2011 expiration of Pfizer’s U.S. patent on Lipitor. The anticholesterol drug accounted for a quarter of the company’s $48 billion in 2007 revenue. Pfizer will lose patents on 13 other drugs by 2014, a gap it hopes to fill in part with Wyeth’s product line. The buyer also expects to cut $4 billion in costs annually by combining the companies, savings that help justify the 29 percent premium Pfizer was offering to Wyeth’s share price before news of the talks broke.
At the start of the decade, Pfizer and Wyeth engaged in a battle for Warner-Lambert Company, which shared with Pfizer the marketing rights for Lipitor. Pfizer broke up a friendly deal between Warner-Lambert and Wyeth (then known as American Home Products Corp.) by paying $90 billion for the target.
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