Drugs giants get advice from US firms

US FIRMS are advising on the merger between pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Warner-Lambert.

Both companies have instructed New York-based lawyers on the £51.2bn merger - one of the five biggest - which will create the world's second largest pharmaceuticals group.

Pfizer has instructed Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and Kaye Scholer Fierman Hays & Handler. Warner-Lambert is using Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

Linklaters corporate finance partner Stephen Boughton, the lead partner for SmithKline Beecham in its £114bn merger with Glaxo Wellcome, says: "The whole deal is a US company bidding for another US company. "

Victoria Kitcatt, senior legal adviser at Pfizer in the UK, says: "It's not a UK issue so nothing's happening over here at the moment.

"There might be some incidental work in the future for London generated by the merger."