"Both animal health and nutrition are strong businesses with attractive customer bases and solid fundamentals, but distinct enough from our core businesses that their value may be best maximized outside the company," Ian Read, Pfizer president and CEO, said in a statement.
Lest anyone immediately assume Pfizer does not love puppies - or cats or cows or any of the Noah's Ark lineup taking its medicines and vaccines - as much as the next Wall Street-focused corporation, one Pfizer animal-health executive said the possibility of a stand-alone company, vs. being a division of Pfizer, was being underplayed in the financial media.
Veterinary Practice News quoted Clint Lewis, president of U.S. operations, as saying in an interview: "We're not talking about a company that's ranked fourth, fifth, or sixth in the industry. This is the No. 1 company in the industry on the animal-health side, so we're clearly operating from a position of strength. The mere fact that one of the viable options is a spin-off to a separate stand-alone company, I think, bodes exceedingly well for our ability to continue to do what we do, but also, quite frankly, for the animals and customers, veterinarians and producers alike, that benefit from that."
Animals and humans have both similarities and distinct differences for pharmaceutical companies, beyond the idea that a salmon might take its medicine more easily than a crying, squirming toddler.
The bar for regulatory approval is lower for animals than humans, but more federal agencies are involved. The Food and Drug Administration oversees both vaccines and medications for humans but only medicines for animals, while the Department of Agriculture approves animal vaccines.
Pfizer, which is based in New York and has a human-drug unit in Collegeville, has more than 5,000 employees in its animal unit, with headquarters in Madison, N.J.
