Pfizer

Pfizer has been the biggest pharma company throughout the first decade of the 21st century, and continues to set the pace and many trends in the sector.

In 2009, it addressed its biggest problem, the impending expiry of blockbuster Lipitor, by spending $62 billion in acquiring fellow US pharma company Wyeth.

The completion of the deal was swiftly followed by news that a number of manufacturing and research sites are to close.

Pfizer had already announced in January when the deal was announced that 19,000 employees were likely to lose their jobs, but this is the first time that specific information about site closures has been divulged.

Top of the list for closures is Pfizer's own unit in Bridgwater, New Jersey, which employs 300 people focuses on manufacturing and process development, and Wyeth's Great Valley building, which handles administrative functions such as information technology.

Two Wyeth facilities in Collegeville, Pennsylvania will also be closed, although the main pharmaceutical campus there will be kept as the focal point for Pfizer's speciality medicines business, including vaccines.

Wyeth's corporate headquarters in Madison, New Jersey, will also stay open and take charge of diversified healthcare, including consumer and animal health businesses.

Pfizer has said it expects $4 billion in savings by 2011 from plant and programme rationalisation, on top of ongoing restructuring efforts expected to cut costs by $2 billion.

Pfizer has already announced a reorganisation of its R&D into two units - PharmaTherapeutics (headed by Martin McKay) and BioTherapeutics (headed by Mikael Dolsten).

In November, 2009, Pfizer announced that it would reduce its global R&D square footage by 35%. R&D activities will be conducted at five main sites and nine specialised units around the world as compared with 20 R&D sites after the acquisition of Wyeth was completed.

Lipitor remains top product

Pfizer’s profits rose by 7% in 2009 on the back of a 4% increase in revenue driven by cholesterol treatment Lipitor and pain drug Lyrica.

Lipitor is still Pfizer’s biggest product by some way, making $11.4 billion in 2009, but sales were down 8% from the previous year and a steeper decline is expected when it loses patent protection in 2011.

Its next best-selling product is Lyrica, which increased its 2009 sales by 10% to $2.8bn, followed by arthritis pain drug Celebrex, which slipped back 4% on the previous 12 months to make $2.4bn.

Revenue reached $50bn for the year with net income totaling $8.6bn and the figures were lifted by its acquisition of Wyeth last year.

This was most noticeable in the fourth quarter when revenue increased 34% to $16.5 billion as sales from Wyeth legacy products were counted for the first time.

Pfizer hopes its $68bn Wyeth acquisition will see no drug accounting for more than 10% of its combined revenue by 2012 – in contrast to 2009 when Lipitor brought in 23% of the company’s sales.

Pfizer has 30 new compounds in development for oncology and 10 in development for Alzheimer’s. One of these - PF-5236806 ACC-001 - is a possible vaccine for Alzheimer’s dementia and currently in phase II clinical trials.

For 2010 Pfizer is expected to generate revenue of between $67-69bn, a sum lower than expected by some analysts.