“Pfizer at a pivotal moment in its history and the entire pharmaceutical industry needs to pay attention” says visiongain

Pfizer owns the patents to some of the world’s top drugs, including ten blockbusters (drugs with over $1bn annual sales revenue), but the company is about to lose the patent protection to a number of key products, and consequently suffer significant income loss in a very short space of time. Patent protection is key to the product life span of drugs for the pharmaceutical industry, and is usually granted for a period of 20 years.

Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug, will have patent protection until at least 2009, but is producing such high revenues that the generic companies are itching to gain some of the market share. Pfizer has already lost one patent court battle for Lipitor, admittedly in the relatively insignificant Austrian market. Even the market strength of Viagra is wilting as competitors take its market share.

“Although recent Q3 results from Pfizer were not as positive as many in the industry were expecting, they were not a surprise,” says Tristan Heath pharmaceutical market analyst at visiongain. “Whilst Pfizer have dominated the pharmaceutical industry in recent years, the latest downturn in sales and future profit warnings from Pfizer were predicted by visiongain in our latest report – Pfizer, Current Challenges and Future Difficulties, 2005-2010.”

Pfizer has not given up, and this year plans to spend a staggering $8 billion on research and development. However its search for the next blockbuster is not an easy one and visiongain doubts whether Pfizer will rely on their research alone for continued success. The $60 billion Pharmacia merger propelled Pfizer to the top but was a mixed blessing. Pfizer gained the rights to the painkilling blockbusters, Bextra and Celebrex, but these have suffered under the Vioxx scandal. Visiongain believes that Pfizer will look for other mergers to satisfy the demand for further growth.

As health authorities, particularly in the US and EU, try to reduce their expenditure on drugs still further, this visiongain report explores the key issues for Pfizer and how it plans to remain the most influential drug company in the world today.

ENDS
Notes for editors: To receive your complimentary overview of - Pfizer, Current Challenges and Future Difficulties, 2005-2010 - Please send an email to Sara Peerun sara.peerun@visiongain.com, telephone Sara on +44 (0) 20 8767 6711 or visit www.visiongain.com. Please include your full name, title of publication, contact telephone number, email, and details of where you saw this release. Upon receipt of this information, an overview will be emailed to you.

Background:
Visiongain is one of the fastest growing and most innovative independent media companies in Europe today. Based in London, UK, visiongain produce a host of business-2-business conferences, newsletters, management reports and E-Zines focusing on the Financial markets, the Pharmaceutical, Telecoms industries and the Defence sector.

For information on visiongain, please visit www.visiongain.com