Pfizer Struggles As Generics Pummel Its Drugs

06 January, 2006

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug company, is struggling with a big problem: a growing campaign by employers and insurers to drive patients toward cheap generics.Investors and the company have long known that generic copies would pummel several of Pfizer's top drugs that are losing patent protection. But in a new twist, generic versions of competitors' drugs are hurting sales of Pfizer drugs that are still patent-protected. Licensing deals, acquisitions and the company's own research have failed to produce enough products to pick up the slack.

Most critically, U.S. prescriptions for Pfizer's cholesterol-buster Lipitor have stagnated, even though five years remain on the key patent covering the medicine. At Kaiser Permanente, a California health maintenance organization, fewer than 10 percent of patients on cholesterol-lowering drugs are getting Lipitor.

The result is trouble for the company that defined an era of heavily marketed pills for masses of patients.In October, Pfizer, which has its research and development headquarters in the Groton-New London area in Connecticut, withdrew projections for 2006 and 2007, saying it lost a reasonable basis to make predictions.

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