Allergan PLC’s Irvine hub for ophthalmology and medical aesthetics is poised to join a new operating unit after Pfizer Inc. wraps up its $160 billion buy of the drugmaker.
Pfizer, which anticipates the Allergan deal will close in the second half of the year, said this month that the businesses that predominate on the Dupont Drive campus will then be part of a newly created unit called Global Specialty and Consumer Brands. It’s unknown where the unit will be based.
Pfizer said the combined company will be called Pfizer PLC and will have its corporate base in Dublin, Ireland, for tax purposes. Allergan is currently based in Dublin and operates primarily from Parsippany, N.J., while Pfizer is headquartered in New York.
Global Specialty and Consumer Brands also includes Pfizer’s current consumer healthcare unit.
The unit will be led by Bill Meury, who joined Allergan after Actavis PLC bought the former Allergan Inc. last year for $68 billion. He’s currently executive vice president and president of Allergan’s branded pharma unit.
“Bill has a demonstrated track record and brings deep leadership experience,” said Ian Read, Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this month detailing the combined company’s executive team. “He has held a variety of senior positions with Forest Labs and Actavis across a range of disciplines, including sales, marketing, product management, market research and product commercialization, and directed 15 product launches during his time at Forest, Actavis and Allergan.”
Forest Laboratories Inc. is another predecessor company of Allergan PLC that Actavis bought in 2014.
Global Specialty and Consumer will be part of Pfizer’s innovative products unit, which includes research and development. The deal also will create a global established pharmaceutical unit headed by legacy Pfizer executive John Young.
Current Allergan Chief Executive Brent Saunders, a frequent visitor to the Orange County campus, will serve as Pfizer’s president and chief operating officer and will oversee Pfizer and Allergan’s combined commercial businesses, manufacturing and strategic functions.
What’s still unknown, however, is how many legacy Allergan executives will remain as part of the combined company’s operations. Operational executives were nearly split between legacy Allergan and legacy Actavis as part of the latter’s acquisition of Allergan.
“Over the coming months we will announce additional roles within each of the businesses and functions,” said Pfizer spokeswoman Joan Campion in an email interview.
“Members of Allergan’s current executive leadership team will be included as part of that selection process for key roles in the combined company,” Campion said.
Allergan PLC has two legacy Allergan Inc. executives who currently hold executive vice president titles and head two of four commercial units.
Philippe Schiason is president of the Irvine-based Allergan Medical business unit, which encompasses Botox and other medical aesthetic products, and Paul Navarre is president of International Brands.
Pfizer is designing the combined company to “preserve and enhance our option to potentially separate the innovative and established businesses into separate companies in the future, and continue to expect to make a decision about any potential separation by no later than the end of 2018,” Read said in the SEC filing.
The Pfizer-Allergan deal is expected to include layoffs, although specific numbers haven’t been released. Allergan currently employs about 2,085 in Irvine and 30,000 companywide after laying off more than 1,000 at its Irvine office since mid-2014, when predecessor Allergan Inc. was seeking to improve profitability and fight a hostile takeover attempt by Canada-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and activist investor Bill Ackman. Subsequent local hires and consolidation of staff from other Southern California facilities have offset more than half of the Irvine layoffs.
Allergan and Pfizer executives have been spending the months since the deal was announced in November meeting with investors and analysts and promoting the combination’s advantages.
Saunders said in a late-November conference call with analysts that joining with Pfizer gives Allergan access to 70 markets it currently has no presence in, including Japan, which is the second largest drug market in the world.
“You have a multibillion-dollar business in Pfizer that already exists there. We’re trying to figure out how to bring our product flow into Japan in an efficient way,” Saunders said. “[That] issue is solved through this transaction.”
Saunders in an interview with a dermatology trade publication last month addressed the impact of the transaction on Allergan’s customers.
“Very similar to when Actavis merged with Allergan, there was no commercial overlap between the companies. That holds true with Pfizer and Allergan. There is no overlap in dermatology and plastics,” the executive said.
Saunders said he anticipates “that there should be very little change or impact in Allergan Medical and how it’s run and how it serves the dermatology and plastic surgery communities” in the short term, and later added that Allergan Medical’s focus would continue to be facial aesthetics and plastic surgery.
He touched upon what’s in the pipeline for Allergan Medical, including investments in different applications for flagship Botox and to improve lower-face fillers Juvéderm and Voluma, plus expanding use of Kybella, the double-chin treatment that Allergan got last year when it acquired Westlake Village-based Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc.
Pfizer also named three other executives besides Meury and Young who will report to Saunders, none of whom are with the current incarnation of Allergan. They are Albert Bourla, group president, global innovative pharma; Tony Maddaluna, executive vice president and president, Pfizer Global Supply; and Laurie Olson, executive vice president, strategy, portfolio and commercial operations. All are current Pfizer executives.
Legacy Pfizer executives who will report to Read after the acquisition closes are Frank D’Amelio, executive vice president, business operations and chief financial officer; Mikael Dolsten, president, worldwide research and development; Chuck Hill, executive vice president, worldwide human resources; Rady Johnson, executive vice president, chief compliance and risk officer; Doug Lankler, executive vice president, general counsel; Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall, executive vice president, chief medical officer; and Sally Susman, executive vice president, corporate affairs.
