Pfizer buying Wyeth. Merck buying Schering-Plough. It’s pharma mega-merger season again.
I hate it.
“Market conditions” | “Complementary pipelines” | “Operational synergies” blah, blah, blah. I’ve heard all the explanations and rationalizations dozens of times before.
Analysts are looking at numbers. I’m looking at faces.
Every one of these mergers has a huge price tag that is rarely weighed in the balance. It’s called disruption.
- Really good people end up losing their jobs, simply because they are re-labeled from “contributor” to “redundant”.
- Creative and promising initiatives are stopped dead in their tracks, and often taken out back for burial.
- Healthy corporate cultures are destroyed.
- Productivity nosedives for month after month, as no-one knows what (if) their job will be in the future, and the inevitable jockeying and posturing takes over.
- Agencies and service providers that served one (or both) companies are thrown into a tizzy and lose large volumes of work.
- Any residual notion of corporate loyalty in our professional arena erodes further, with subsequent resentment and disenchantment.
I remember, with fondness, rubbing shoulders with the folks at Parke-Davis, at RPR, at HMR, at Pharmacia, at Aventis, at Wyeth, at Takeda. I remember bright and motivated people, imaginative programs, interesting corporate cultures, strong professional relationships. And I remember the disruption with every merger or buyout.
Yes, yes, I know that some mergers may actually pan out with an upside down the road (certainly not always, however!). And, some folks get a big payday out of these events. But sweep aside all those numbers, and if you’re involved in the industry, you see people. And pain. I hate these mergers.