Reported talks to buy Wyeth could transform Pfizer

NEW YORK — Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, may be seeking to buy rival Wyeth in a deal that could be valued at more than $60 billion, the biggest in recent memory.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the companies have been in talks for months, although the report said any deal is not near completion and the state of the global markets could undo any plans.

Such a deal could cheer investors and analysts who have been pushing Pfizer — struggling with flat revenue, diminishing returns on research and looming generic competition to the world's top-selling drug — to make a bold move to get out of its doldrums.

Until now, it has been taking baby steps, cutting staff here, closing plants there and trimming its research portfolio.

But acquiring Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth would transform Pfizer almost overnight from basically a pure pharmaceutical company into a broadly diversified health care giant, given Wyeth's huge presence and revenue in biotech drugs, vaccines including the blockbuster pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar and consumer health products from Advil to Robitussin.

Representatives for both Wyeth and New York-based Pfizer declined to comment.

"It's our policy not to comment on marketplace rumor," Wyeth spokesman Doug Petkus said.

Shares of Wyeth jumped $3.32, or 8.3 percent, to $42.05 in early trading. Pfizer shares declined 45 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $16.76. Such declines are typical for a company doing a big acquistion.

Pfizer is the world's top drugmaker by revenue, led by the blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor, which tallies about $13 billion in annual sales — about one-quarter of Pfizer's entire revenue. Lipitor is expected to face generic competition in November 2011, and a high-profile effort to come up with a successor drug flamed out when torcetrapib had to be axed in late-stage testing because it triggered heart problems.

Last fall, Pfizer publicly conceded that failure when it narrowed its research areas and eliminated all new research on heart disease, the world's top killer.

That's left Pfizer Chief Executive Jeff Kindler under pressure to take some kind of preemptive action, with investors upset that its share price is barely one-third of its July 2000 peak of $48.