Cutting the corporate tax rate from 30per cent to 20per cent would take Australia halfway towards the low-tax regimes of China, India and others, and give it a chance of competing, Medicines Australia said.

The document, one of more than 600 submitted to Industry Minister Kim Carr's review of programs supporting industry, warned that without action, multinational drug companies would follow the example of one of the world's biggest, Merck Sharp & Dohme.

Merck Sharp & Dohme scaled back manufacturing at its South Granville plant in Sydney's west this year at the cost of 60 jobs, demonstrating that Australia "has already lost these advantages or, at the very least, faces the real danger of losing them some time very soon", the submission said.

The pharmaceutical industry exported nearly $4billion worth of products last year and spent $450million on research and development. But it has lost access to many of the government programs that pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the sector between 1988 and 2004.

Kevin Rudd lent some support to the call for corporate tax reform at last month's 2020 Summit, but he has been wary of making detailed commitments. A spokeswoman for Senator Carr yesterday declined to comment on Medicines Australia's proposals before the completion of the review.

Guess what happens when you buy your drugs from China already packaged, and out source drug testing.  Answer:  don’t need major U.S. facility—just like what happened to Detroit.

http://www.globest.com/news/1115_1115/detroit/169110-1.html

Pfizer Inc. Sees Interest in 2M-SF Mixed Site

By Robert Carr March 17, 2008  09:46am

ANN ARBOR, MI-Pfizer Inc. has had more than 60 tours of its 2.2-million-sf site that it plans to vacate by 2009 {almost empty now}, including a visit from Cleveland-based developer Forest City Enterprises Inc. The drug maker, based in New York City, announced last spring that it would be closing down the Ann Arbor property, which has 28 buildings spread over 175 acres, and sending some employees elsewhere. The company is cutting 10,000 jobs worldwide, including most of the jobs here.

A Forest City spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com that Michael Rosen, SVP for new business development of the company’s Science and Technology Group, did take a look at the property. However, she refused to provide more details, and Rosen could not be reached for comment. “Touring sites is something we do all the time across the country,” she says. “We really don’t have anything to announce.” The company has bought Pfizer properties before, including a one-million-sf site in Skokie, IL, creating a business park where Rosen himself is now based.

A spokesman for Pfizer tells GlobeSt.com that he can’t comment on any tours of the site, but confirmed there have been dozens of companies, some who have toured more than once. The company has been working with Staubach brokers since June. “We’ve had a good response to our marketing effort,” the spokesman says. “We’re still early in the process.”

Another rumor is that the University of Michigan, which owns adjacent properties, may buy the property or go in on the land in a joint venture. University officials reportedly admitted an interest, but would not comment further.

The Pfizer spokesman says the company wants to be a good neighbor. “We’ve certainly have had conversations with them to gauge their interest.”

The company has transferred most of the employees from the 28 buildings. “We’ve transferred most of the research and development work to other locations,” the spokesman says. “We’re at about a 330-person headcount, down from 2,100, people when we were operational.” The space breakdown is 720,000 sf of office, 750,000 sf of laboratory and other research space, and a 234,000 sf manufacturing facility. The property can be subdivided or sold as whole, he says.

Pfizer is also closing plants in Kalamazoo, and two manufacturing sites in Brooklyn, NY and Omaha, NE. “We did a global assessment for all our operations worldwide in 2006, and realized we needed to have a more streamlined global operation,” the spokesman says. “We’ll still have a very large presence in Kalamazoo, we’re keeping our largest manufacturing site.” The firm will close Ann Arbor completely by the end of the year.

“Streamlined global operation” means, it is cheaper to buy the drugs prepackaged from China.