With Sanofi Aventis circling the wagons (i.e., pulling the charge card out of its European manpurse) for a major deal and just one day after Merck CEO Richard Clark indicated his company wouldn’t rule out any transaction, it almost seems odd to hear a major player say that they aren’t interested in joining the flock.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Healthcare CEOs Unscripted conference in New York, Mr. Witty made clear that GSK’s strategy would be to focus on smaller deals in fast growing areas like emerging markets and consumer healthcare rather than engage in a mega-merger. He went on to say, “I don’t particularly believe that big M&A is going to be a great solution to anything in the next few years.”
So… arguably the top two players in the pharmaceutical world have chosen two divergent paths to riding out the current economic climate and presumably the near future.
If I was a betting man, I’d put money on GSK beating Pfizer in revenue by 2011-2012.
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Eben is a highly caffeinated business development associate at a small, cash sensitive pharmaceutical company somewhere in Massachusetts. He enjoys cliche-less banter, compartmentalization, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and NPV analysis. Agree or disagree with what he's posted? He encourages comments.
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