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  3. By wrestling with the question of its corporate structure, Pfizer is having a debate that echoes throughout the industry. Invest

By wrestling with the question of its corporate structure, Pfizer is having a debate that echoes throughout the industry. Invest

admin2018-06-06  59
问题     By wrestling with the question of its corporate structure, Pfizer is having a debate that echoes throughout the industry. Investors have pressed many diversified drug firms this year over whether they should break themselves up into more specialised units. Diversified firms are those that typically have consumer-health divisions offering low-margin products such as plasters and talcum powder. Meanwhile, "pure-play" drug companies focus on innovative medicines—for example, a full cure for Hepatitis C— that command high margins.
    Companies such as Johnson & Johnson (J&J), GSK and Novartis fall into the first camp, and have all recently wrestled with the question of splitting themselves up. Investors and analysts tell them that they may be worth more broken into their parts than as a whole, and ask whether capital is being allocated efficiently across their divisions. These sort of questions inspired Pfizer to sell its consumer-products division to J&J in 2006, and Merck, an American drug firm, to divest its consumer unit to Bayer in 2014.
    Neil Woodford, an influential shareholder in many pharma companies, including the British drug firm GSK, accused it in January of being four FTSE100 companies bolted together. GSK includes its core medicines and vaccines outfit, a consumer-healthcare division, a dermatology unit and a specialist HIV business. Andrew Witty, its boss, explains that some time ago he took a long-term view of his company, anticipating greater pressure on drug prices. The firm wanted to offset lower drug prices with higher sales of low-margin, high-volume products. The aim was to invest in businesses that were less exposed to a "pricing dynamic".
    Other diversified pharma companies make the same case. Consumer divisions smooth out the bumpy revenue that comes with the uncertain business of inventing drugs—which may fail to win approval, and eventually come off patent. In recent months the argument has gone their way. There has been heavy pressure on drug pricing in America after a series of firms, most recently Mylan, were pilloried for stratospheric rises. The NASDAQ biotech index, comprising mostly small firms pursuing innovative drug research, fell by 3.6% on a single day in August when Hillary Clinton sharply criticised the industry’s decisions on pricing. Advocates of diversification were boosted by GSK’s strong performance in the second quarter of this year. It handily beat expectations thanks to those boring, low-margin areas like consumer health and vaccines.
    Even firms that publicly profess a desire to slim down are likely to buy others. Cash is piling up on the balance-sheets of many companies in the industry. Japan’s Takeda is the latest to indicate that it is on the prowl for acquisitions. Firms may be looking for new drugs to sell, or different geographical regions to operate in. In specific areas such as cancer, points out Matthias Evers, a partner at McKinsey, a consultancy, scale and the depth of drug pipelines matter enormously. Pfizer’s purchase of Mediation, for example, allows the bigger firm to bolster its oncology portfolio. However much pharma bosses and investors debate the merits of focus versus diversification, they will keep doing deals.
Some companies give up the plan of a full-line products for ______.
选项 A、the lack of high technologies
B、achieving better financial statements
C、showing very few varieties
D、mastering some products
答案B
解析 细节题。KK三步宝典：K1定位。由give up和full-line定位到首段末句：Meanwhile，“pure—play”drug companies focus on innovative medicines—for example, a full cure for Hepatitis C—that command high margins．(而“单一业务”药物公司注重创新药物——例如完全治愈丙型肝炎的药物——这些药物控制着高利润。)，可见“高利润”是最终目的；如果这里太过于模糊看不出来可以定位到第二段：Investors and analysts tell them that they may be worth more broken into their parts than as a whole…投资者和分析师告诉他们，分成多个部分或许能比作为一个整体更值钱……放弃全线制药转而生产专门产品可以有更大的经济回报！KK三步宝典：K2替换和K3排除。B选项“为了造出更好的财务报表”，好报表是盈利的体现，也就是说为了“高利润”，故正确。而A选项“缺乏高科技”属于未提及选项，C选项“表现出很低的多样性”不是目的，D选项“精通一些产品”，不是最终目的，和原文不符，故排除。
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