Pfizer and Allergan: Here We Go Again

Last night the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Pfizer and Allergan are considering merging. I’m not a fan of huge pharma mergers, never have been, but this one at least isn’t as offensive as some of them. That’s partly because, in the words of FierceBiotech‘s John Carroll (on Twitter) that Allergan at least doesn’t have as huge an R&D effort for Pfizer to demolish. And since Allergan is incorporated in Ireland, this is a way for Pfizer to do what it really seems to need to do most -- deal with its tax situation, which was the driving force behind their attempt to take over AstraZeneca. Pfizer has gigantic amounts of money piling up in its non-US-based operations, and if they repatriate it, they’ll expose themselves to some of the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world.