Pfizer pledges big investment in Ratiopharm

Pfizer is pushing hard for a Ratiopharm buy, with top execs traveling to Germany over the weekend to press their case. Some news reports say the drugmaker even boosted its offer for the German generics maker. Either way, CEO Jeff Kindler led his executive group in presenting an acquisition proposal at Ratiopharm's Ulm HQ.

Pfizer is said to be bidding as much as $4.08 billion for the generics maker, which has been on the block now for several months. Pfizer is competing with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Iceland's Actavis Group for the buy. Like its Big Pharma rivals, Pfizer is trying to build a bigger generics business to capture its share of that fast-growing market. But why would Ratiopharm choose Pfizer? That's the question Kindler & Co. were trying to answer in Ulm.

In short, Ratiopharm would get to expand exponentially because it would have access to Pfizer's enormous sales network and, of course, the multinational company's financial resources. The acquisition plan would put Ratiopharm in charge of Pfizer's new Established Products (a.k.a. "generics) unit, Bloomberg reports.  Plus, Pfizer management pledged to invest heavily in Ratiopharm's growth, with plans to extend the company's European generics business and boost production capacity.

- see the Bloomberg story
- read the news from Reuters
- get the Wall Street Journal piece

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