Mergers and Acquisitions in Practice

6Post-Merger Integration in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industries

A practical approach

Lars Schweizer

Introduction

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been a popular strategy for firms during the last few decades. On the one hand, they offer various advantages such as direct access to technologies, products, distribution channels, and market positions. On the other hand, M&As can provide access to knowledge and bring into a company capabilities that are hard to develop (Schweizer 2005). Still, many M&As have not been successful and have failed to achieve their objectives, particularly due to difficulties in the post-acquisition integration process (Agrawal and Jaffe 2000; Aktas et al. 2009, 2011; Haleblian et al. 2009; King et al. ...