Pharmaceutical company Wyeth’s strong cash position could allow it to make new biotech acquisitions even as works to fend off competition from generic drugmakers for several of its biggest products.

Wyeth Chief Executive Bernard Poussot, speaking on Wednesday at a Goldman Sachs health-care meeting, noted that many of the company’s top-selling products are biotech medicines — large proteins made in living cells that are becoming a lucrative mainstay of treatment for a wide range of diseases.

Poussot said Wyeth, with $14 billion in cash, is in good shape for acquiring “attractive technologies.”

“Our goal is to deliver reliable and sustainable growth over the years,” he said. “To achieve that, our best strategy is to build one of the most global diversified biopharmaceutical companies.”

Although global merger activity dropped 28 percent in 2008 and faces more declines this year, drug makers and other cash-rich companies may take advantage of weak stock prices to make deals.

Other large drugmakers, including Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co , have also said that falling prices of biotechs could make them more attractive for takeovers.

Wyeth has been hurt by the unexpected launch early last year of a generic form of its Protonix ulcer medicine. Also, its $4 billion-a-year Effexor XR depression drug is now facing competition in Europe from cheaper generics and will lose patent protection by 2010 in the U.S.

(Additional reporting by Ransdell Pierson)