AstraZeneca board includes (from left to right) CEO, Tom McKillop (was Zeneca Pharmaceuticals CEO); chair, Percy Barnevik; deputy chair Håkan Mogren (was Astra CEO); deputy chair, David Barnes (was Zeneca CEO).

Last month, Astra AG (Södertälje, Sweden) and Zeneca Group (London) agreed to merge into AstraZeneca (London). Completion of the deal, which produces a company valued between $65 billion and $75 billion, will give Astra shareholders 46.5% of the new firm and Zeneca shareholders 53.5%. The merger will create a much larger company with greater resources in terms of sales, marketing, and research. "The state of the pharmaceutical industry today is changing dramatically and resources are absolutely critical to competitively operate," says Steve Lampert, Zeneca spokesperson. "In order to take up the competition against the other big companies you need more financial muscle," agrees Astra's Michael Lidel. Last year the combined firm would have had sales of $11.5 billion. The formation of AstraZeneca—the corporate headquarters of which will be in London, and the main R&D center in Södertälje—will result in 6000 jobs losses over three years, which AstraZeneca estimates will save about $1.1 billion in costs. According to Zeneca's Rachel Bloom, Zeneca and Astra overlap in cardiovascular and respiratory areas, and "the new company will have a pipeline of 55 products." It's "too early to tell" how biotechnology programs will be affected, Bloom says, "All we've done in this merger is put the top management structure in place."