ARYX: PG has not committed to selling the pharma business and it does not consider this an urgent matter; if a pharma-division sale ends up happening, it likely won’t be during 2009. Moreover, PG’s preference if it does sell the division is to unload the whole thing in one transaction rather than in piecemeal divestitures.
Under these circumstances, I fail to see why PG’s decision-making vis-à-vis a specific drug candidate would be materially different from the decision-making of any other Big Pharma. If a drug candidate has potential commercial value, keeping it in the portfolio ought to increase the realizable sale price for the pharma division.
In short, I think the assertions by ARYX management cited by mcbio are indeed spin.
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