Pfizer's Wyeth Deal Cleared to Close -- Where Will Schering-Merck Place AH Assets, Now?

This last part -- about Boehringer Ingelheim buying the Wyeth Animal Health vaccines -- should give the markets some pause, about where the buyers will come from, if the FTC or ECC requires that Schering-Plough divest some Animal Health vaccines to get the deal done.

It also puts the Merck deal closer to Christmas (or into 2010), if the time-lines stay on the same proportional tracks. Here is the AP, on the Pfizer/Wyeth clearances:

. . . .Pfizer Inc.'s $68 billion purchase of Wyeth will close Thursday after antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Canada cleared the deal.

The Federal Trade Commission says it approved the deal, and Pfizer says the Canadian Competition Bureau also gave its blessing. Pfizer will have to sell about half of Wyeth's animal health business and change a Canadian distribution agreement, and the company said it will also sell its horse vaccine business.

German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim will buy those divisions, including Wyeth's vaccines for cattle, dogs, and cats, and medicines used in treating cattle, dogs, cats, and horses. . . .

This last bit marginally decreases the flexibility Schering-Plough and Merck have, as Intervet may need to shed some of its assets in these vaccine markets. While I know that the conventional theory holds that Intervet will become part of the 50-50 "New Merial" joint-venture (if and when Sanofi-Aventis exercises its call option, post close), the regulators must evaluate what is, not what might be.

So, with Boehringer Ingelheim buying these Wyeth vaccine assets, Schering-Plough may have one fewer place to "put" competing product line assets, especially in Europe.

We'll have to wait and see.