If targets are to be believed, AstraZeneca (AZN) has a year to get its house in order. Chief executive Pascal Soriot promised investors at an industry conference three years ago that the pharmaceutical giant would return to sustained top-line and earnings per share growth in 2017. That no doubt felt like a fairly long lead time. But as the deadline approaches is the target still realistic for the company?
These past couple of years have hardly been event-free. In May 2014, only a matter of months since Mr Soriot's rousing address, US giant Pfizer (US:PFE) came forward with an aggressive £69bn takeover bid for its Anglo-Swedish rival. Pfizer had multiple motivations for a foreign merger - which have latterly been demonstrated by its agreed deal to buy Botox maker Allergan - but it insisted AstraZeneca's future product development pipeline was what caught its eye. Mr Soriot's response was blunt: AstraZeneca was not for sale, and would be going it alone. 'It' referred to the rigorous research and development process to find new game-changing medicines - not to mention getting them approved by the relevant regulators and successfully launching them in a crowded marketplace. In recent times, GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) less-than-inspiring launches of respiratory products Anoro and Breo should be a warning to many.