P&U's Fred Hassan: The Virtue of "Been There, Done That"

P&U managed to turn itself around following the near-disaster of its merger between Swedish Pharmacia and American Upjohn, with much of the credit due to its CEO and the subject of this interview, Fred Hassan. Hassan consolidated its autonomous research and marketing centers and focused development and marketing efforts on a few heretofore under-resourced drugs. He had the advantage of being new to the job, brought in to salvage an already bad situation. His experience with previous deals at American Home certainly helped. And he argues his consolidation experience will help with Monsanto, too--though now he's an insider trying to manage a merger of equals. But the central value of the P&U and P&U/Monsanto deal is the same: create a vastly increased marketing force to turbocharge the launch of the company's new products.