Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - (Page 3) Attack of the Monster Mergers Walter Armstrong asks what the Wyeth deal really means for Pfizer — and for the rest of pharma. W hat will Pfizer do? That question has been asked almost daily by the business media since late 2006, when then-new CEO Jeffrey B. Kindler announced the death of torcetrapib, the company’s would-be saviour. The number one pharmaceutical company with the best-selling drug in history — and the steepest patent cliff — has come to symbolise the ‘crisis’ of the drug industry and its bankrupt blockbuster model. It’s only fair to remember that Kindler, like President Obama, inherited the mess he faces. In a race against time, he has arguably made the right moves: ending the sales-force arms race, re-creating R&D as small business units, abandoning cardiology for oncology. He in-licensed and outsourced, cut back and closed down. “The expression I use here a lot is: ‘the spirit of small, the power of scale,’” Kindler told Business Week last October. “It’s continuous improvement, but we’ve made enormous progress.” Still, Kindler couldn’t get a break. Exubera became a joke; Chantix, a rare breakthrough from Pfizer’s own lab, made news less for its public health benefits than for the bizarre behaviour of new users. “You want to know why everyone picks on Pfizer?” asks Decision Resources analyst Michael Latwis. “Because they spend the most money on R&D and have a string of failures to show for it.” (Pfizer did succeed with Sutent, approved simultaneously for kidney and gastrointestinal tumour in 2006; it had sales of $850 million in 2008.) Pfizer stock has lost 34% of its value since Kindler took over, compared with a drop of 20% for the Dow Jones Wilshire Pharmaceuticals Index. Scott Richter, a portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management, dumped his Pfizer shares more than a year ago because the R&D wasn’t performing. “Cost-cutting can help earnings in the short term, but it’s not transformational,” Richter says. 1 NEWS 2 FROM THE EDITOR / NEWS 3 MEGAMERGERS 7 NEW SALES MODELS 10 UK NEWS 12 CALENDAR 13 ON THE MOVE CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE TO PHARM EXEC http://www.decisionresources.com/ http://www.decisionresources.com/ http://www.djindexes.com/ http://www.djindexes.com/ https://www.ftam.com/wps/portal/ftam https://www.ftam.com/wps/portal/ftam http://www.pharmexeceurope.com/europharmexec/newsletter/subscribeNewsletter.jsp
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 Contents From the Editor Pfizer-Wyeth Sales News Calendar On the Move Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Contents (Page 1) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - From the Editor (Page 2) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Pfizer-Wyeth (Page 3) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Pfizer-Wyeth (Page 4) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Pfizer-Wyeth (Page 5) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Pfizer-Wyeth (Page 6) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Sales (Page 7) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Sales (Page 8) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Sales (Page 9) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - News (Page 10) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - News (Page 11) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - Calendar (Page 12) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 18, 2009 - On the Move (Page 13)
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