Pfizer, the world’s biggest pharmaceutical group, plans to acquire Wyeth.

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced plans to acquire rival company Wyeth in a deal worth $68bn (£49bn).

Pfizer will buy Wyeth in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at $50.19 per share.

The company raised $22.5bn (£16bn) from banks to make the deal.

The merger, announced today (26 January), serves to protect Pfizer from an expected drop in revenue in 2010 when many of its popular products, such as cholesterol treatment drug Lipitor, lose patent protection.

Wyeth is also expected to suffer next year as its top drug, Effexor, an antidepressant, comes off its patent.

The acquisition will also allow Pfizer to expand and diversify its portfolio, moving into new fields such as biotech drugs and vaccines. The company predicts that by 2012, no single drug will account for more than 10% of the firm’s revenue. 

Pfizer has also announced plans to cut approximately 10% of its global workforce, representing 8,000 jobs, and close down some of its manufacturing sites in a cost cutting move.

Jeffrey B. Kindler, Pfizer Chairman and CEO, commented: “With our combined biopharmaceuticals business, it will lead in primary and specialty care as well as in small and large molecules.

“Its geographic presence in most of the world’s developed and developing countries will be unrivalled.”