The company may sell its first copies of medicines like Amgen’s anaemia therapy Epogen or Sanofi-aventis’ blood thinner Lovenox in four to five years, and eventually market 10 to 15 such drugs, said David Simmons, Head of Pfizer’s Established Products Business Unit. Pfizer also may ally with or buy companies that possess the technology as part of a strategy that is still being completed, Simmons said.

Pfizer’s US$68 billion Wyeth acquisition, completed in October 2009, expanded its ability to make biological drugs, injectable treatments made in living cells. Health-overhaul legislation, now being debated in US Congress, would create the first US regulatory process to copy biotech drugs, opening a market worth US$10 billion in the next decade, according to Ronny Gal, a Sanford C Bernstein Analyst in New York.

“While the market is young and nascent in its development, it’s going to be big”, Mr Simmons said in a telephone interview. Pfizer still needs to complete its plans and appropriate internal funding to take advantage, he said.

Pfizer, based in New York, rose 48 cents, or 2.7%, to US$18.24 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The drugmaker has rebounded 56% since reaching a 13-year low on 2 March this year, compared with a 53% gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler said during a conference call on 20 October 2009 with investors that he wants to increase Pfizer’s generic offerings as a new stream of revenue beyond blockbuster drugs, such as the cholesterol pill Lipitor.

The company is preparing to lose most of Lipitor’s US$12 billion in annual sales starting in 2011 when cheaper generic copies enter the market. Mr Kindler has also been expanding the company’s business outside the US and Europe and restructuring its research and sales operations to lower spending. Pfizer has eliminated 33,000 jobs between the end of 2004 and 2008 and plans to cut an additional 19,000. (see also Pfizer’s biosimilars strategy and Pfizer and the US Biosimilars Pathway)

References:

Pfizer plans to launch versions of biotech blockbuster drugs. BIO SmartBrief. 2009 December 9

Shannon Pettypiece. Pfizer Seeks Boost From Copying Biotechnology Drugs (Update4). Bloomberg. 2009 December 9.