Why? Because David Brennan is convinced he can prevail in disputes over the drugmaker’s two biggest meds, Nexium and Seroquel, and so hasn’t had any discussions about settling the cases, he tells Reuters.

“We haven’t discussed anything around settlement. Our position has been we have strong intellectual property and we intend to defend it and stand behind it. Obviously, we have options available to us. We always explore options that are available but it’s clear to us that we have an intellectual property argument to make and we are making it,” he says. However, more cost-cutting is envisioned if AstraZeneca loses the battles.

The drugmaker’s $5.2 billion cash cow, the Nexium heartburn med, could face generic competition in April. Ranbaxy Laboratories, which has first US rights to market a generic, last week received tentative FDA approval. And the Seroquel antipsychotic, a $4 billion seller, may face a generic threat in late March from Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Should either generic drugmaker launch in the next few weeks, AstraZeneca could claim damages, assuming court battles over patent rights are upheld. However, these so-called ‘at risk’ launches are becoming more common - Teva recently made such a move over Wyeth’s Protonix, which led the brand-name drugmaker to begin marketing its own ‘authorized’ generic when the companies failed to negotiate a deal. This tactic most likely appeals to Brennan.

“We have had experience going through the judicial process,” Brennan says assuredly, noting that the drugmaker prevailed in seven out of eight previous patent cases. AstraZeneca maintains valid US Nexium patents do not begin to expire until 2014, while other patents run through 2019.

Some analysts have suggested AstraZeneca could be left as a takeover target for a bigger rival if Nexium or Seroquel were to fall to generics but Brennan said he did not believe such a mega-merger was likely, Reuters writes. “I think that the future of our industry will have a lot more to do with collaboration than it will with consolidation,” he tells the wire service.