Michael Connarty
Main Page: Michael Connarty (Labour - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)AstraZeneca (Pfizer Bid)
Michael Connarty ExcerptsUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Vince Cable
If the bid proceeds, I guess that we will need to have detailed discussions with both companies about the specifics, which would go beyond the broad commitments that Pfizer has offered in its open letter. I recognise that there is an awful lot more detail to be confronted.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I know it is not a matter of nationality, but I remind the Secretary of State of the adage, “Beware of a Scotsman on the make”—even if Ian Read left Scotland in 1978. Pfizer is in trouble. Its profits have dropped by 15% to £1.3 billion, and every time it takes over a company it is to seize a product. It was Lipitor—an anti-cholesterol drug—from Warner-Lambert; with Wyeth it was Enbrel, an arthritis drug, and then it shut Wyeth’s research. It shut its own research. There can be no guarantees that this company is after anything other than a tax haven. What can and will the Secretary of State do to stop that?
Vince Cable
I am obviously not going to give a running commentary on share prices today and tomorrow, but I repeat that throughout the industry, the big pharmaceutical companies have all been retrenching and creating redundancies because of the way technology has evolved. In fact, much of the dynamism in that industry—which I see frequently on my visits to universities—is through small spin-out companies. The nature of the industry is changing, and it is not just Pfizer that has been responsible for redundancies.