Commitments by US drug firm Pfizer to preserve British science jobs if it wins a $106 billion battle to take over AstraZeneca are legally binding, the company said today.

“To ensure our commitments are binding, we included them with our proposed offer announcement understanding fully that they would be binding as a matter of English law,” the group said in a statement to British lawmakers, ahead of a May 13th panel meeting.

Pfizer has given a five-year commitment to complete AstraZeneca’s new research centre in Cambridge, retain a factory in the northwestern English town of Macclesfield and put a fifth of its research staff in Britain if the deal goes ahead.

But the US firm has also said it could adjust those promises if circumstances change “significantly”. (Reuters)