(RTTNews) - Giant drugmaker Pfizer, Inc. (PFE: News ) Tuesday announced its leadership plan and organizational structure for its research and commercial operations to be implemented pursuant to the Wyeth (WYE: News ) acquisition closure. The company agreed to acquire Wyeth in a deal valued at about $68 billion in January. The deal is expected to close at the end of the third quarter or during the fourth quarter of 2009.

In a statement, chief financial officer, Frank D'Amelio, who is leading the integration on behalf of Pfizer, said, "With today's announcement we have taken another significant step in preparing for the combining of these two great companies. Having our organizational structure in place is critical to the combined company being operational on Day One, and the appointment of these leaders will accelerate our ability to do so."

The company added that until the acquisition is complete Pfizer and Wyeth leadership would continue in their current roles. However, chief executive officers of both the companies, Jeff Kindler and Bernard Poussot, along with the senior leadership of both companies would work closely to implement the integration process.

The deal, which came in the thick of the financial crisis, creates a pharmaceutical behemoth with combined revenue of about $75 billion. The deal is expected to be accretive to Pfizer's adjusted earnings per share in the second full year after closing and yield cost savings of about $4 billion to be fully realized by the third year after closing.

With patent expirations looming large, and with the pipeline not likely to churn out any new products in the immediate future, the acquisition of Wyeth will help to fill Pfizer's impending revenue gap. Through the acquisition, the New York-based drugmaker will gain the depression drug Effexor and pneumonia vaccine Prevnar to offset some of the sales it begins losing in 2011 when Lipitor loses patent exclusivity and gets generic competition. It would also help offset dwindling sales of Celebrex, which has been impacted severely following the recall of the similar-acting Vioxx.
Wyeth's key drugs include Enbrel, a drug prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis and other auto-immune diseases, antidepressant drugs Effexor and Effexor XR and Prevnar, a pneumococcal vaccine. Enbrel topped $3 billion in total sales, Effexor raked in worldwide revenue of $3.93 billion, while Prevnar notched up sales of $2.72 billion in fiscal 2008.

This is the biggest acquisition in the pharmaceutical sector since 2000, when Glaxo Wellcome Plc acquired SmithKline Beechman Plc for $76 billion. In 2004, Paris-based Sanofi-Synthelabo SA acquired Aventis SA of Strasburg, France, for $64.4 billion to create Sanofi-Aventis SA, France's biggest drugmaker.

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