Pfizer Animal Health ‘likely to be spun out’

Pfizer Animal Health is likely to be developed into a spin-off company when parent company Pfizer completes its strategic review of the business unit.

Sources close to the deal have informed Reuters that Pfizer is gravitating away from a full sale of its veterinary medicines business due to the financial and regulatory complexities involved with doing so.

Although interested bidders have come forward with the aim of buying Pfizer Animal Health, they are being told to back away due to the likelihood that a full auction will not be held.

An announcement on the future of Pfizer's animal health and infant nutrition businesses is due next year, with expectations now suggesting that the nutrition unit will be sold, while animal health will be spun out.

"[Pfizer] keeps saying this is a 2012 decision, but it's looking like later rather than sooner," added a Reuters source.

The Pfizer Animal Health business is a world leader in the veterinary medicines sector, operating in more than 60 nations, while revenues for 2010 came to around $3.6 billion (2.3 billion pounds).