Pfizer to acquire Wyeth

Pfizer and Wyeth today announced that Pfizer will purchase Wyeth for $68 billion, as anticipated.  The deal, as today's NY Times article notes, stands out in the current financial climate:

The deal not only create a pharmaceutical behemoth but would be a rarity in the current financial tumult: a big acquisition that is not a desperate merger of two banks orchestrated by the government.  It will also be the first big merger backed by Wall Street in months. While credit has been notoriously tight of late, five banks have agreed to lend Pfizer $22.5 billion to pay for the deal. Pfizer, which has roughly $26 billion in cash, would finance the remainder through a combination of cash and stock.

Every major pharmaceutical company has experienced mass tort litigation, and these two are no exceptions.  Pfizer defended the Celebrex and Bextra litigation, and earlier the Bjork-Shiley heart valve litigation.  Wyeth (formerly American Home Products) took a huge hit in the fen-phen litigation, and more recently has faced mass litigation over its Prempro and Premarin hormone replacement therapy products.

Last May, Amy Schulman joined Pfizer as its general counsel.  Before going in-house at Pfizer, Schulman headed the mass tort practice at DLA/Piper and was lead counsel for Pfizer in the Celebrex-Bextra litigation.  In December, Pfizer hired Bradley Lerman as its litigation chief.  As a partner at Winston & Strawn, Lerman defended McDonald's in the fast food litigation and worked for Phillip Morris in the Engle tobacco class action.

HME