Shrinking Pfizer targeting new round of small, tailor-made buyouts and pacts

Posted under Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Eliquis, Funding, Ian Read, Icagen, Lipitor, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pfizer, Pharmaceuticals, Prevnar 13, Startups, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

Pfizer is thinking small these days. In keeping with the deal-making theme at the J.P. Morgan conference, Pfizer ($PFE) CEO Ian Read carefully mapped out the pharma giant's near-term strategy, with plans to focus on reasonably priced "bolt-on" acquisitions and licensing pacts while pushing five key products which have either just hit the market or are headed to the FDA.

Pfizer became the industry's poster child for megamergers in recent years. But Read made it clear that the days of the big buyout are over. The $50 million Icagen buyout stands out as an ideal fit for Pfizer these days as it shrinks its R&D operations and tailors its clinical research efforts with key strategic contracts struck with Parexel and Icon, according to a report from The Daily Deal.

"We're only going to do bolt-on acquisitions or licensing deals that make sense financially," he told a gathering in San Francisco, according to the AP.

If Icagen represents the ideal buyout for Pfizer in 2012, don't expect the Big Pharma outfit to pay any premiums anytime soon. Pfizer scooped up its partner in pain last summer for what was widely viewed as a bargain basement price, far beneath the price forecast by analysts.

But with Lipitor revenue falling fast as generic competitors muscle in to the market, Pfizer hasn't lost its appetite for big earners. Prevnar 13 and the lung cancer drug Xalkori are expected to add significant revenue, while three experimental meds--the kidney cancer drug axitinib, tofacitinib for rheumatoid arthritis and the anti-clotting treatment Eliquis--show great promise.

- read the story from The Daily Deal
- here's the AP report

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Pfizer’s Emini targets pneumonia market with Prevnar 13

Posted under Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pfizer, Pharmaceuticals, Prevnar 13, Startups, Universities, vaccines, Videos by Maureen Martino

In November, Pfizer ($PFE) won expert backing for the use of its vaccine Prevnar 13 to protect adults over 50 from pneumococcal infections. If the FDA agrees with the panel's decision--and it usually does--Pfizer could have an expanded approval of the blockbuster vaccine in hand by January. That could translate into as much as $2 billion in additional sales for the pharma giant, which lost patent protection for Lipitor this week.

Heading up Pfizer's vaccine efforts is Emilio Emini, who came to the company in Pfizer's buyout of Wyeth in 2009. After graduate school, Emini spent 22 years at Merck conducting research on HIV drugs and other notable vaccines like Zostavax, RotaTeq and Gardasil. He retired in 2004 to pursue nonprofit work, but later got back into the R&D game at Wyeth. In an interview with Forbes, Emini explained what draws him to vaccine research. "The rush comes from the fact that once you introduce a vaccine, if it's a successful vaccine, within a very, very short period of time the disease that you are immunizing against goes away," he told the magazine.

The disease Emini has his eye on now is pneumonia. Prevnar, which has been on the market since 2000, has already helped cut pneumonia and meningitis rates in kids. Pfizer hopes that next-generation Prevnar 13 will help reduce adults' risk of contracting pneumonia in hospital settings, where it's common. The drugmaker is close to winning approval for use of the vaccine in adults over 50 and has an 85,000-person study under way to further prove that Prevnar 13 can prevent pneumonia in older adults. 

- read the full Forbes article

Interview: Pfizer vaccine unit eyes adults, infectious disease

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