Pfizer

Men of a certain need must spend more money for more years after a federal judge sided with drugmaker Pfizer Inc. as it tried to fend off a generic version of its erectile-dysfunction drug Viagra in a patent-protection lawsuit. The suit pitted two of the world's biggest drugmakers - Pfizer and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., both of which have local operations - against each other. Pfizer is the global leader in pharmaceutical sales, and Teva leads the pack in generic drugs, which now account for about 75 percent of the market.

GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. and Pfizer Inc. have sued generic drug giant Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. for allegedly infringing a U.S. patent for the HIV drug Epzicom, Bloomberg News reported. All three companies have large operations in the Philadelphia region. Glaxo and Pfizer have a joint venture, ViiV Healthcare, which makes Epzicom. Teva applied to the Food and Drug Administration to sell a generic version of Epzicom, ViiV lawyers said in a complaint filed in federal court in Wilmington, Del., Bloomberg said.

It took just a few minutes for the vast majority of Wyeth shareholders to say goodbye to the 83-year-old pharmaceutical giant at the company's last annual meeting yesterday. About 98 percent of Wyeth shareholders voted to approve the company's $68 billion acquisition by New York-based Pfizer. Wyeth is based in Madison, N.J., but employs about 5,000 people at operations in Collegeville and Malvern. The deal will solidify Pfizer's position as the top-selling drugmaker in the world and help it compensate for billions of dollars in revenue it likely will lose when its cholesterol fighter Lipitor loses its patent in 2011.

Pfizer is intent on shedding noncore businesses. AstraZeneca is intent on adding any small company that might bring revenue. Such were underlying motivations for billion-dollar deals announced Monday by the two pharmaceutical giants, both of which have operations in the Philadelphia region. Pfizer Inc. sold its infant nutrition division to Nestle SA for $11.85 billion while AstraZeneca P.L.C. spent $1.26 billion to buy San Diego-based Ardea Biosciences Inc., which has a promising, but not-yet-ready, medicine for gout.

NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc. said Thursday it may sell its animal health and nutrition business in the next two years so it can focus on expanding its low-cost pharmaceuticals unit. Pfizer, which has faced pressure to eliminate some business units and return more cash to shareholders, said the moves will allow investors to get more value for the businesses. The company will also consider transactions including spinoffs and may pursue different strategies for each business. Any transactions could take one to two years to complete, Pfizer said.

Pfizer Inc. and Wyeth plan to close their $68 billion merger today, leaving employees at the companies' two Philadelphia-area sites wondering whether they'll be among the 20,000 to be laid off. The two companies employ about 130,000 people and have said that there will be layoffs. U.S. and Canadian antitrust regulators cleared the merger yesterday. Wyeth, based in Madison, N.J., employs about 4,500 people in this area - about 3,600 in Collegeville and 900 in Great Valley and other sites.

Who loves puppies more? Merck or Pfizer? Both global pharmaceutical giants have animal-health divisions, but they are considering different paths. Merck Inc. just announced that it was bringing a Philly guy home - sort of - to run its animal kingdom, and chief executive officer Ken Frazier (another Philly guy) highlighted the unit's results in his opening statement to investment analysts when discussing second-quarter results. Pfizer Inc. said it was exploring the sale or spin-off of its animal unit and its human-nutrition division.

Patent protection and product pipelines are top priorities for every pharmaceutical manufacturer, which is why Pfizer Inc. and Teva Pharmaceuticals International Ltd. will be in federal court in Norfolk, Va., starting Wednesday as Pfizer fights to keep exclusive rights to Viagra through 2019. Pfizer sells about $1 billion worth of the little blue pills per year in the United States to help men with erectile dysfunction, amounting to about 2 1/2 percent of the company's sales. Along with other pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer has been fretting because some top-selling drugs are nearing the dates at which generic-pharmaceutical firms can produce and sell similar products for less money.

Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, reported Tuesday that its profit fell 50 percent in the last quarter of 2011, partly because of declining revenue from the cholesterol drug Lipitor. The company's situation for all of last year - nearly flat revenue, a declining workforce, but a 21 percent profit increase - points to the tumultuous changes in the industry, globally and locally. One of the "key takeaways" in the slide presentation that Pfizer promoted to Wall Street analysts was that the company "achieved total cost reduction targets associated with the Wyeth acquisition one year ahead of schedule.

Officials from Pfizer Inc., whose blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor faces increased generic competition this month, told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that the company would discontinue many of the unusual promotional programs it conducted in the last six months to retain revenue from the drug. Pfizer, which lost exclusivity on Lipitor in late November, had offered $4 coupons and struck deals with some health plans, which the Journal reported cost the company more than $87 million.

Pfizer is intent on shedding noncore businesses. AstraZeneca is intent on adding any small company that might bring revenue. Such were underlying motivations for billion-dollar deals announced Monday by the two pharmaceutical giants, both of which have operations in the Philadelphia region. Pfizer Inc. sold its infant nutrition division to Nestle SA for $11.85 billion while AstraZeneca P.L.C. spent $1.26 billion to buy San Diego-based Ardea Biosciences Inc., which has a promising, but not-yet-ready, medicine for gout.

In the Region Pfizer sues Johnson over heat patch Pfizer Inc. has sued a unit of Johnson & Johnson, contending it infringes on a U.S. patent for pain-relieving heat-patch technology. Pfizer, with operations in the Philadelphia region, seeks unspecified damages after a jury trial and a halt to sales of McNeil-PPC's Precise brand patch, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Delaware. McNeil has facilities in Fort Washington. "McNeil was aware of the patent" because its number "is clearly marked on the packaging of Thermacare, Pfizer's competing product," Pfizer lawyers allege.

INDIANAPOLIS - Birth-control pills are known to be nearly 100 percent effective when taken properly, but a recall of the drugs could send a shudder through women of childbearing age. A manufacturing mix-up by Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, led to some packets being distributed with the pills out of order. That means a patient could have unknowingly skipped a dose and raised her risk of an accidental pregnancy. Pfizer has recalled about one million packets of Lo/Ovral-28 and its generic equivalent, but the company estimates that only 30 packets were flawed.

Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, reported Tuesday that its profit fell 50 percent in the last quarter of 2011, partly because of declining revenue from the cholesterol drug Lipitor. The company's situation for all of last year - nearly flat revenue, a declining workforce, but a 21 percent profit increase - points to the tumultuous changes in the industry, globally and locally. One of the "key takeaways" in the slide presentation that Pfizer promoted to Wall Street analysts was that the company "achieved total cost reduction targets associated with the Wyeth acquisition one year ahead of schedule.

I'm not sure what the twists in the local life-sciences sector in early 2012 portend for the year as a whole. Just after New Year's, Ossianix Inc. , a two-person biopharmaceutical company in Philadelphia, attracted investment from a major European drug company called H. Lundbeck A/S . No dollar signs were attached to what was described as a "strategic investment. " But Lundbeck, which had its U.S. commercial headquarters in King of Prussia for a few months in 2006-07, is a major player in treatments for disorders of the central nervous system.

Companies often give employees price discounts for purchasing company products. For instance, Lenovo, which bought IBM's personal-computer line in 2005, allows employees to buy Thinkpad tablets and other gadgets for a discount. Several large pharmaceutical companies with operations in this area go beyond discounts and provide their prescription products with no co-payment to employees who have a script, and the reason is simple: profit. Opaque pricing is one of the systematic mysteries of American health care and, in various marketplaces, pharmaceutical companies are no different from other companies in using such situations to maximize profits.

A Philadelphia jury Tuesday said pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. must pay three women $72.6 million in compensatory damages because the menopause drugs they took gave them breast cancer. The Common Pleas Court jury will begin the punitive phase Friday and could last two weeks, but it might mean even larger awards for the women, who live or had lived in Pennsylvania. Jury awards in such cases can be reduced by judges or changed by appeals courts. "The plaintiffs were pleased with the phase one outcome, and they look forward to presenting phase two evidence beginning Friday," said attorney Tobi Millrood, a partner in the Conshohocken-based firm of Pogust, Braslow & Millrood L.L.C.