Astrazeneca And Its Merger And Aquisition

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astrazenica the changing business environment and the role of the mergers and acquisitions in the evolution of the company AstraZeneca PLC is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. Its corporate headquarters are in London, its research and development headquarters are in Södertälje, Sweden, and it has manufacturing facilities in 19 different countries. The company operates nine research and development sites and has sales in over 100 countries worldwide. AstraZeneca focuses its drug business on seven medical areas: anesthesia and pain control, cardiovascular, central nervous system, gastrointestinal (in which it is the world leader), infection, oncology, and respiratory. Its product range includes Losec--marketed in the United States as Prilosec--the world's top selling prescription drug, and Seloken, the world's leading cardioselective beta-blocker. The company is the result of the 1999 merger of two European pharmaceuticals companies: Astra AB of Sweden, which made pharmaceutical products and medical devices, and Zeneca PLC of the United Kingdom, a bioscience company that focused on pharmaceuticals, agricultural and specialty chemicals, and disease-specific healthcare services. One year after its merger, the company achieved sales of US$15.8 billion, with an operating profit of US$4 billion. Astra: Early Development Astra AB was formed in Sweden in 1913 by the initiative of more than 400 doctors and apothecaries who joined together to establish the company and to become its first shareholders. Two products--Digitotal, a heart medication, and Glukofos, a nutritional supplement--emerged from Astra's facilities in 1914, and the company began to prosper. When the apothecary Hjalmar Andersson Tesch joined Astra in 1915 as the company's new president he brought with him a number of his own pharmaceuticals; Astra's product line now comprised a variety of

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