It was widely expected, but American drugs giant Pfizer has officially withdrawn its £69 billion takeover bid for AstraZeneca which has over 2,000 employees in Cheshire
Pfizer said in a statement: “On 18 May 2014, Pfizer announced that it had made a final proposal to AstraZeneca to make an offer to combine the two companies.

“Following the AstraZeneca board’s rejection of the proposal, Pfizer announces that it does not intend to make an offer for AstraZeneca.”

Ian Read, chairman and chief executive of Pfizer, said: “We continue to believe that our final proposal was compelling and represented full value for AstraZeneca based on the information that was available to us.

“As we said from the start, the pursuit of this transaction was a potential enhancement to our existing strategy.

“We will continue our focus on the execution of our plans, bringing forth new treatments to meet patients’ needs and remaining responsible stewards ofour shareholders’ capital.”