Pascal
Soriot, AstraZeneca's chief executive, warns potentially life-saving cancer
drugs could be 'significantly delayed'
The Guardian, Rupert Neate, Tuesday 13 May 2014
Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, leaves after appearing at a parliamentary business and enterprise committee hearing in London. Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters
Chief Executive of AstraZeneca Pascal Soriot |
Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, leaves after appearing at a parliamentary business and enterprise committee hearing in London. Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters
The boss of
AstraZeneca raised the stakes over the controversial takeover threat by US
rival drugmaker Pfizer by warning on Tuesday that an aggressive cost-cutting
plan by the American firm could cost the lives of cancer patients.
Pascal
Soriot, AstraZeneca's chief executive, told MPs that the development of
life-saving cancer drugs could be significantly delayed by the combined
companies "saving tax and saving costs".
Soriot, who
is desperately fighting Pfizer's plans to gobble up his company in the biggest
ever foreign takeover of a British firm, said the planned £63bn deal could
severely jeopardise the development of some of the world's most promising
drugs.
"Any
distractions on work we are doing now could run the risk of delaying our drugs
pipeline," he said. "From the lab to the patient takes many
years."
In an
emotive appearance at the business select committee, Soriot said: "What
will we tell the person whose father died from lung cancer because one of our
medicines was delayed – and essentially was delayed because in the meantime our
two companies were involved in saving tax and saving costs?
"It is
logical to assume that a merger like this could mean substantial cost savings,
and cost savings could mean job losses."
Soriot is
concerned that Pfizer's proposed takeover – which the US company admitted
yesterday would result in job cuts and a big reduction in research and
development spending – could distract AstraZeneca's scientists as they approach
a crucial point in the development of several potentially life-saving drugs.
Within the
last week AstraZeneca has released a string of positive test results and pushed
three drugs through to late stage trials, including a lung cancer medicine
fast-tracked to final stage trials.
AstraZeneca
began phase III large-scale hospital trials of the cancer immunotherapy drug
codenamed MEDI4736 last weekearlier successful trials at American Society of
Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago later this month.
The drug,
which uses the body's own defences to spot and kill cancer cells rather than
attacking them with chemotherapy, is regarded as potentially one of the most
groundbreaking of recent years. It could also be a big money-spinner, with
AstraZeneca believes sales could peak at £3.9bn a year.
Pfizer
declined to comment on the suggestion that its proposed takeover could cost
lives, but its chief executive, Ian Read, told MPs that his motivation for
buying AstraZeneca was to speed up the introduction of new medicines, not slow
it down.
"We
have an expression at Pfizer, 'Patients are waiting', and the faster we can get
medicine to patients the more productive we can be and the more successful the
industry will be," he said.
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