Posted on 03/09/2009 6:24:39 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Merck & Co. is buying Schering-Plough Corp. for $41.1 billion in stock and cash in a deal that gives the companies more firepower to compete in a drug industry facing slumping sales, tough generic competition and intense pricing pressures.
The deal announced Monday would unite the maker of asthma drug Singulair with the maker of allergy medicine Nasonex and form the world's second-largest prescription drugmaker. Merck and Schering are already partners in a pair of popular cholesterol fighters, Vytorin and Zetia.
The latest combination comes only a few weeks after Pfizer Inc. announced it has agreed to pay $68 billion for Wyeth.
Big companies across the pharmaceutical industry are facing slumping sales as the blockbuster drugs of the 1990s lose patent protection, complicated by a dearth of major new drugs coming on the market.
Merck and Schering-Plough, along with most of their rivals, are currently eliminating thousands of jobs and restructuring operations to further cuts costs.
"This is a uniquely complementary match," Merck Chairman and CEO Richard Clark told The Associated Press.
He said the combined company will be "well-positioned for sustainable growth through scientific innovation" and have a strong, diversified product portfolio.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Left unsaid and the elephant in the room is the coming nationalization of the industry by Obama's socialist health-care policies aided and abetted by Pelosi and Reid. On the other hand, any company that has cash can pick up another company in today's depressed market.
And of course, that will result in still more layoffs, and less competition. Swell.
The drug companies are merging so that they too can become “too big to fail” under the coming Obama healthcare nationalization scheme. Would they be merging otherwise?
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