WyoSeeker
6th December 2010, 19:48
Rumor is Pfizer is one of the companies Wikileaks has some dirt on... but I'm sure this is just coincidence.
Jeffrey B. Kindler, Pfizer Inc.’s CEO and chairman, stepped down unexpectedly today after 4 1/2 years leading the world’s biggest drugmaker, saying he needs to "recharge his batteries" after reorganizing most of the company’s operations.
Ian Read, who has run Pfizer’s worldwide pharmaceutical operations since 2006, took over immediately.
Kindler, 55, described his tenure as "extremely demanding" and said he plans to spend more time with his family while preparing for new challenges.
A Harvard Law School graduate and former McDonald’s Corp. executive who joined Pfizer in 2002, Kindler revamped the company’s sprawling pharmaceutical sales operation into five divisions that gave their leaders more control and responsibility. That significantly boosted revenue in emerging markets and stabilized sales of older medicines hit by generic competition in the wealthiest countries by promoting them heavily elsewhere.
Pfizer, based in New York City, maintains a large presence in New Jersey. In 2009, Kindler engineered its acquisition of Wyeth, buying the Morris County-based company for $68 billion.
The deal allowed Pfizer to metamorphosize overnight from a maker of blockbuster pills such as the cholesterol fighter Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug at nearly $13 billion a year, to a highly diversified company. It now has an impressive and lucrative biologic drug business, plus veterinary medicines and consumer health products including Centrum vitamins and Advil and Anacin pain relievers.
"Now that we are about to complete a full year of operating Pfizer and Wyeth together, with our world-class team fully in place, I have concluded the time is right to turn the leadersip of the company over to Ian Read," Kindler said in a statement.
Not everyone has been happy with Kindler’s performance. In the last couple of years, Pfizer has suffered a string of failures of experimental drugs in the very expensive late stages of testing. The Wyeth acquisition has cost roughly 20,000 workers their jobs at a time when the entire industry is laying off huge numbers of people. In the past year, Pfizer has shut down a manufacturing operation and a drug research facility in New Jersey. However, it continues to operate a facility in Madison, which had been Wyeth’s world headquarters.
Kindler also faced the challenge of trying to replenish the company’s pipeline of new medicines after the failure of a new cholesterol medicine, torcetrapib, in 2006.
Barbara Ryan, a pharmaceutical industry analyst with Deutsche Bank, called Kindler’s decision "surprising."
"He had a tough job from the minute he got in," she said in an interview with The Star-Ledger last night. "He’s done a lot to move the company forward but Wall Street never gave him credit. He’s been under constant siege."
In September 2009, the company was hit with a record $2.3 billion government fine for illegally promoting a number of medicines for unapproved uses that were inappropriate for some patients — a practice that’s widespread in an industry that markets some products relentlessly.
Read, 57, was promoted in 2006 to head the global pharmaceutical business, which has about 40,000 employees and brings in about 85 percent of Pfizer’s revenue — about $61 billion a year. It sells everything from pain drug Lyrica and impotence pill Viagra to cancer drugs and specialty medicines, generally pricey injected drugs for complex, chronic diseases.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/pfizer_ceo_jeffrey_b_kindler_u.html
Jeffrey B. Kindler, Pfizer Inc.’s CEO and chairman, stepped down unexpectedly today after 4 1/2 years leading the world’s biggest drugmaker, saying he needs to "recharge his batteries" after reorganizing most of the company’s operations.
Ian Read, who has run Pfizer’s worldwide pharmaceutical operations since 2006, took over immediately.
Kindler, 55, described his tenure as "extremely demanding" and said he plans to spend more time with his family while preparing for new challenges.
A Harvard Law School graduate and former McDonald’s Corp. executive who joined Pfizer in 2002, Kindler revamped the company’s sprawling pharmaceutical sales operation into five divisions that gave their leaders more control and responsibility. That significantly boosted revenue in emerging markets and stabilized sales of older medicines hit by generic competition in the wealthiest countries by promoting them heavily elsewhere.
Pfizer, based in New York City, maintains a large presence in New Jersey. In 2009, Kindler engineered its acquisition of Wyeth, buying the Morris County-based company for $68 billion.
The deal allowed Pfizer to metamorphosize overnight from a maker of blockbuster pills such as the cholesterol fighter Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug at nearly $13 billion a year, to a highly diversified company. It now has an impressive and lucrative biologic drug business, plus veterinary medicines and consumer health products including Centrum vitamins and Advil and Anacin pain relievers.
"Now that we are about to complete a full year of operating Pfizer and Wyeth together, with our world-class team fully in place, I have concluded the time is right to turn the leadersip of the company over to Ian Read," Kindler said in a statement.
Not everyone has been happy with Kindler’s performance. In the last couple of years, Pfizer has suffered a string of failures of experimental drugs in the very expensive late stages of testing. The Wyeth acquisition has cost roughly 20,000 workers their jobs at a time when the entire industry is laying off huge numbers of people. In the past year, Pfizer has shut down a manufacturing operation and a drug research facility in New Jersey. However, it continues to operate a facility in Madison, which had been Wyeth’s world headquarters.
Kindler also faced the challenge of trying to replenish the company’s pipeline of new medicines after the failure of a new cholesterol medicine, torcetrapib, in 2006.
Barbara Ryan, a pharmaceutical industry analyst with Deutsche Bank, called Kindler’s decision "surprising."
"He had a tough job from the minute he got in," she said in an interview with The Star-Ledger last night. "He’s done a lot to move the company forward but Wall Street never gave him credit. He’s been under constant siege."
In September 2009, the company was hit with a record $2.3 billion government fine for illegally promoting a number of medicines for unapproved uses that were inappropriate for some patients — a practice that’s widespread in an industry that markets some products relentlessly.
Read, 57, was promoted in 2006 to head the global pharmaceutical business, which has about 40,000 employees and brings in about 85 percent of Pfizer’s revenue — about $61 billion a year. It sells everything from pain drug Lyrica and impotence pill Viagra to cancer drugs and specialty medicines, generally pricey injected drugs for complex, chronic diseases.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/pfizer_ceo_jeffrey_b_kindler_u.html