Pfizer research chief Mikael Dolsten: AstraZeneca tie-up would be a truly healthy option

This week, I will be giving evidence before the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee on our proposed combination with AstraZeneca.

I am a physician scientist by training, and have spent my career working on translating cutting-edge science into safe, effective drugs to prevent, treat and cure disease.

Appearing before a committee of MPs is a first for me, but I’m actually excited to have the opportunity to explain why I think a Pfizer-AstraZeneca combination would benefit patients around the world and strengthen the UK’s life sciences industry. Since we first made our proposal public on April 28, there has been a lot of speculation about what our motivations are.

The one thing I want to make clear to the committee is this: fostering great science, and continuing to deliver medical advances that significantly improve patients’ lives, is absolutely at the heart of our desire to combine with AstraZeneca.

As someone who joined Pfizer as part of the Wyeth acquisition in 2009, I can speak from personal experience on this subject. That combination provoked similar concerns about the impact of a big merger on scientific progress, but we were able to integrate the two companies’ R&D activities in a short time frame to create a stronger organisation better-placed to deliver for patients.

Today, much of our leading talent and a large fraction of our portfolio of drugs derive from the historic Wyeth business, which has flourished as part of Pfizer.

We have great respect for AstraZeneca and its proud heritage as an innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business with a rich, science-based foundation in the UK and Sweden. But we think a combination between Pfizer and AstraZeneca would result in an organisation that is even stronger, more efficient and more innovative than either company would be on its own.

The combined company would be a scientific powerhouse, with increased capabilities to deliver great benefit to patients and science across the globe. As well as creating a strong combined R&D organisation and pipeline that would underpin potential innovative growth, we would be better-placed to meet society’s demand for the faster and more cost-effective delivery of medicines to the patients we serve.

The complementarity between Pfizer’s and AstraZeneca’s pipeline assets makes the potential combination particularly exciting, and we believe increases the likelihood for a steady stream of new product launches.

Specifically, the combined company would have the potential to offer improved treatment options for patients suffering from cancer, heart disease, diabetes and inflammatory diseases, and advance new preventative vaccines against serious infections caused by meningococcal or staphylococcal bacteria.