Derek Lowe, in a November post on his blog about pharma pipelines - (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/11/03/pfizer_strategy_layoffs_and_money.php) highlights a statement made by Jeff Kindler, Pfizer's CEO in an interview with FT.
'We're facing a very significant loss of exclusivity in Lipitor at the end of 2011. We have a clear plan for positioning the company for strong, profitable growth after that. That plan consists of pursuing significant new opportunities for increased revenues starting with our internal pipeline, getting further growth out of our existing products, growing in the emerging markets, growing our business on off-patent products. We sell billions of dollars of off-patent products and in many parts of the world that's the most important opportunity to meet unmet medical needs and looking for other potential sources of revenues.'
Judge for yourself - but it isn't exactly the kind of comment which would inspire confidence in the investor community. Pfizer's stock hasn't exactly been a shining star in recent times - and its obvious from some of the comments to Derek's post that folks out there are very sceptical about Pfizer's ability to generate profits from 'internal pipelines' or generics, where they face stiff competition from low-cost manufacturers.
And of course, the layoffs continue at Pfizer... despite statements to the contrary issued by official sources in the know, the fact that the severance-package program (due to expire end 2008) has been extended to mid-2009. All of this on top of the 10,000 job cuts and plant closures announced in Jan 2007 (http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/pfizer-cuts-10000-jobs/2007-01-22). There's been a lot of chatter on pharma blogs about this, especially on Pharmalot - but its clear that these are trying times indeed for Pfizer, once the darling of investors.
-oRiOn
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