AstraZeneca has been under pressure for a while to improve its drugs pipeline by splashing out on major acquisitions, but analyst at Societe Generale are suggesting the company might do better to shrink down. Astra recently announced that chief executive David Brennan would leave in June, following shareholder disquiet about the growing threat to its key products from generic competition. SocGen said it estimated that by 2017 some 79% of its sales would come from drugs which were no longer protected by patents: Investors have focused on what products or companies Astra can acquire to make up for the sales and profits likely to be lost to generic forms of Seroquel, Nexium and Crestor (all generic by 2016-17), on the assumption that Astra continues with its R&D and marketing-driven business model.
