EDITORIAL: Difficult mix of business, science

Nov 24, 2009 (The Day - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
WYE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- On many levels, Pfizer Inc.'s $67 billion merger with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals makes sense. With the merger, Pfizer plans to reduce the collective research-and-development space of the two companies by 35 percent by eliminating redundant operations, thus boosting profits. The acquisition broadens Pfizer's product line by inheriting Wyeth's vaccine, nutrition, generic drug and consumer product offerings.

The intent, in part, is to better position Pfizer for the blow it will receive when it loses patent protection in 2011 for its blockbuster drug Lipitor, a cholesterol-fighting medicine that will produce about $11.2 billion in sales this year. Come 2011, the sale of generic alternatives to Lipitor will begin eating into profits.

Yet a front-page story in The Day this past Sunday by business writer Lee Howard raises questions as to whether Pfizer is detracting from the core mission on which its long-term viability rests -- drug development.

The working atmosphere at the Pfizer research-and-development laboratories in Groton has changed during a decade dominated by mergers and acquisitions, and not for the better. With each new deal, researchers have faced the constant threat of relocation or job loss because of the growing corporate pressure to improve the bottom line.

It is impossible to quantify what influence this constant change has on the process of drug discovery. But as The Day story makes clear, reduced tolerance to stick with a promising new molecule because it does not pan out quickly enough could be preventing the company from developing the new big sellers it so desperately needs.

Drug development is a difficult and risky business. Stick with a potential new drug too long and a company risks wasting hundreds of millions of dollars. But pull the plug too soon and it may miss the chance for major new discoveries. The past decade has been a particularly dry period for Pfizer, some of it simply bad luck, with potential blockbusters canceled when dangerous side effects emerged during late-stage patient trials.

Pfizer executives know the disruptions big mergers cause and the morale damage that results when staffs are cut. Recognizing this, Pfizer moved quickly to announce restructuring changes after the Wyeth merger with the intent of ending uncertainty among employees and moving past the internal disruptions as expeditiously as possible.

In so doing, however, Pfizer must guard against the tendency, often seen as corporations grow larger, to centralize power. The process of research and discovery must grow from the laboratories up. Researchers cannot so fear failure, and corporate reprisal, that they do not take risks.

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