If Jeff Kindler can do it, Dave Brennan can do it. The AstraZeneca ceo is reportedly poised to hire an outsider as cfo in hopes of finding someone with “fresh management ideas,” The Financial Times writes. Pfizer, you may recall, recently hired a veteran cfo of the shrinking telecom wars, Frank D’Amelio, as cfo in [...]

Not even AstraZeneca execs seem certain. But the drugmaker hopes to run MedImmune separately - yet at the same time, coordinate research so there’s no duplication, The Wall Street Journal writes (subscription required). And AZ execs will also get involved in marketing strategy early on with the drugs that MedImmune is developing.
This hardly sounds like [...]

The drugmaker has sold $6.9 billion in bonds, which makes the sale the largest US debt offering in more than five years. And, of course, AstraZeneca will use the proceeds to repay commercial paper that financed its $15.2 billion acquisition of MedImmune earlier this summer. The offering ranks as the biggest since March 2002, when [...]

Interestingly, Dave Brennan makes this assertion while speaking in China, where the drugmaker announced the opening of its first clinical pharmacology unit in that country. But the ceo insists there are no plans to shift operations out of India in response to the recent patent ruling against Novartis.
That decision, which involved patent protection for the [...]

The ceo is struggling with more than a few challenges - a less-than-stellar pipeline, criticism over the $15.6 billion price tag for MedImmune and this week’s resignation by cfo Jon Symonds. Brennan, of course, displays a stiff upper lip to Bloomberg News. Here are his thoughts on a few pertinent matters….
· On being called an [...]

After losing the race a couple of years to become the drugmaker’s ceo, Symonds is now leaving his job as cfo to become a managing director at Goldman Sachs. And given that his mandate includes expanding private equity investment in the pharmaceutical sector, might Symonds view his former employer as a likely target for a [...]

File this under wistful optimism.
The AstraZeneca ceo says his beleaguered company may just spend billions more to buy products for its ailling pipeline, even after paying $15 billion for MedImmune. Brennan, in fact, is on the lookout for opportunities, including still more biotech firms.
Like some rivals, he concedes the drugmaker can’t “discover its way out” [...]

For the first time since the ‘newsletter affair’ emerged, the drugmaker’s ceo, Dave Brennan is addressing the issue. And not surprisingly, he tells a UK newspaper that he promises to discipline more of the US sales team if allegations of off-label marketing of cancer meds turn out to be true.
“There was an issue and we [...]

After several days of silence, the former AstraZeneca oncology regional sales manager came to the phone and tells Pharmalot that, not surprisingly, the past week has been a “horrible” ordeal. “I don’t wish this on anyone,” says the Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, resident.
For those who missed the controversy, Zubillaga was canned last Friday after comments he [...]