Swedish government ministers have been speaking out against US drugmaker Pfizer’s proposed takeover of AstraZeneca.<br /><br />The company was formed from an Anglo-Swedish merger 15 years ago and has nearly 6,000 staff in Sweden.<br /><br />The country’s finance, enterprise and education ministers have said AstraZeneca’s shareholders should “seriously consider rejecting” Pfizer’s plan, unless the Americans make clear what the impact of a takeover would be.<br /><br />They think the guarantees offered by Pfizer on retaining research and jobs in Europe are not sufficient.<br /><br />AstraZeneca’s management has spurned Pfizer’s current bid, but it is widely expected the US group will offer more money and AstraZeneca has not ruled out discussions at the right price.<br /><br />Pfizer has given a five-year promise to have 20 percent of its research staff in Britain, where AstraZeneca has its headquarters, but it has not spelt out what this means in absolute numbers.<br /><br />At the same time, the US company has said that the overall research budget of a merged group would be lower than the sum of the two companies’ individual research budgets. <br /><br />The numbers suggest Sweden is right to be worried.<br /><br />Pfizer currently has around 11,000 staff working in research worldwide, while AstraZeneca has 9,000, and the two companies together employ 3,450 in Britain – 2,600 at AstraZeneca and 850 at Pfizer – representing 17.25 percent of the combined total.<br /><br />But AstraZeneca plans to shed 400 research posts by 2016 as it moves to a new site in Cambridge, suggesting that research centres in Sweden and the United States will have to take a larger share of future job cuts if Pfizer is to hit its 20 percent target.<br /><br />with Reuters
