RAPACIOUS Pfizer drug company boss Ian Read insulted MPs with an arrogant display of US corporate Newspeak yesterday.

Mr Read faced sharp questioning over a feared jobs massacre if Pfizer succeeds in taking over AstraZeneca, which employs 7,000 people in Britain.

Commons business committee chairman Adrian Bailey MP said the company had been variously described as “a praying mantis” and “a shark that needs feeding.”

The shifty Pfizer chief executive retorted that he was “proud” of the company’s record. 

Explaining the company’s “culture of ownership,” he proclaimed: “N is for no jerks, I is for impact and T is for trust.”

Tory MP Brian Binley referred to the infamous coin which Mr Read always carries, which on one side bears the slogan “straight talk” and on the other side carries the words “own it.”

Frustrated by the evasive answers, Mr Binley told Mr Read that he had spent the whole session on “own it.”

Unashamedly producing the shiny coin from his pocket, Mr Read said it was part of the company’s cultural change.

He admitted to MPs that there would be “some reduction” in jobs and revealed that AstraZeneca would be split into three parts.

MPs repeatedly asked how many jobs would be retained but Mr Read only uttered the mantra that 20 per cent of the company’s global research and development jobs would be in Britain.

He said Britain’s lower corporation tax rates would enable “a more flexible use of our financial assets.”

Labour MP William Bain asked what the company meant by promising to retain a “substantial” number of the 2,000 AstraZeneca employees in Macclesfield.

Mr Read snapped back: “You will know it when you see it what substantial is.”

Unite union assistant general secretary Tony Burke told the committee that assurances given by Pfizer in an open letter were very generalised, wafer thin and “worthless.” There were no commitments beyond the next five years, and the workers were “very, very concerned.”

Industry union GMB national officer Allan Black demanded more guarantees, adding that ideally the deal should be stopped altogether.

In a feeble performance, Business Secretary Vince Cable said he was seeking “meaningful and binding” guarantees from Pfizer.

He suggested that he might deploy secondary legislation to protect British research and development jobs.