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  3. By wrestling with the question of its corporate structure, Pfizer is having a debate that echoes throughout the industry. Invest

By wrestling with the question of its corporate structure, Pfizer is having a debate that echoes throughout the industry. Invest

admin2018-06-06  31
问题     By wrestling with the question of its corporate structure, Pfizer is having a debate that echoes throughout the industry. Investors have pressed many diversified drug firms this year over whether they should break themselves up into more specialised units. Diversified firms are those that typically have consumer-health divisions offering low-margin products such as plasters and talcum powder. Meanwhile, "pure-play" drug companies focus on innovative medicines—for example, a full cure for Hepatitis C— that command high margins.
    Companies such as Johnson & Johnson (J&J), GSK and Novartis fall into the first camp, and have all recently wrestled with the question of splitting themselves up. Investors and analysts tell them that they may be worth more broken into their parts than as a whole, and ask whether capital is being allocated efficiently across their divisions. These sort of questions inspired Pfizer to sell its consumer-products division to J&J in 2006, and Merck, an American drug firm, to divest its consumer unit to Bayer in 2014.
    Neil Woodford, an influential shareholder in many pharma companies, including the British drug firm GSK, accused it in January of being four FTSE100 companies bolted together. GSK includes its core medicines and vaccines outfit, a consumer-healthcare division, a dermatology unit and a specialist HIV business. Andrew Witty, its boss, explains that some time ago he took a long-term view of his company, anticipating greater pressure on drug prices. The firm wanted to offset lower drug prices with higher sales of low-margin, high-volume products. The aim was to invest in businesses that were less exposed to a "pricing dynamic".
    Other diversified pharma companies make the same case. Consumer divisions smooth out the bumpy revenue that comes with the uncertain business of inventing drugs—which may fail to win approval, and eventually come off patent. In recent months the argument has gone their way. There has been heavy pressure on drug pricing in America after a series of firms, most recently Mylan, were pilloried for stratospheric rises. The NASDAQ biotech index, comprising mostly small firms pursuing innovative drug research, fell by 3.6% on a single day in August when Hillary Clinton sharply criticised the industry’s decisions on pricing. Advocates of diversification were boosted by GSK’s strong performance in the second quarter of this year. It handily beat expectations thanks to those boring, low-margin areas like consumer health and vaccines.
    Even firms that publicly profess a desire to slim down are likely to buy others. Cash is piling up on the balance-sheets of many companies in the industry. Japan’s Takeda is the latest to indicate that it is on the prowl for acquisitions. Firms may be looking for new drugs to sell, or different geographical regions to operate in. In specific areas such as cancer, points out Matthias Evers, a partner at McKinsey, a consultancy, scale and the depth of drug pipelines matter enormously. Pfizer’s purchase of Mediation, for example, allows the bigger firm to bolster its oncology portfolio. However much pharma bosses and investors debate the merits of focus versus diversification, they will keep doing deals.
Which of the following is true according to Paragraph Four?
选项 A、Consumer divisions may prevent patent disapproval in drug inventing.
B、The uncertainty of inventing drugs could be smoothed by the consumer divisions.
C、The rise of the drug price in America was caused by Hillary Clinton’s remark.
D、Advocates of diversification were encouraged by the GSK’s performance in drugs.
答案B
解析 细节题。KK三步宝典：Kl定位和K2替换。四个选项分别对应第四段的句子：A和B对应第二句：Consumer divisions smooth out the bumpy revenue that comes with the uncertain business of inventing drugs—which may fail to win approval, and eventually come off patent.（消费者部门可以理顺制药的不确定收人——药物可能无法获得批准，最终无法获得专利。）所以A．Consumer divisions may prevent patent disapproval in drug inventing．“消费者部门可能会防止制药过程中的专利不被通过”，就是不对的！故应排除！加了may也不对！所谓消费者部门就是生产普通产品的部门，比如洗发水或者是药妆BB霜。B．The uncertainty of inventing drugs could be smoothed by the consumer divisions．“制药的不确定性是可以被消费者部门所理顺的。"所谓理顺就是弥补的意思。B为正确选项。C．选项对应这句：Hillary Clinton sharply criticised the industry’s decisions on pricing…“希拉里·克林顿严厉批评该行业的定价决定……”，C．The rise of the drug price in America is caused by Hillary Clinton’s remark．“希拉里的言论造成了美国药品价格的上涨。"这就可以直接排除了吧！希拉里批评了药价上升。而非她的言论造成了药价上涨。D．Advocates of diversification were encouraged by the GSK’8 performance in drugs．看好了！最后一句说的是GSK’s performance在consumer health and vaccines的表现！而不是drag的表现！偷换！排除！有同学说：vaccines也是药。就你懂得多?我就是故意在这里设置的一个偷换。就想告诉你多元化经营的支持者就是受到了药企中非医药部门的表现之鼓励！我不和你争vaccines是不是drug！你就是没读懂！好好接受就行！别纠结了。
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