Pfizer reaffirms its plan to continue smaller acquisitions

NEW YORK Pfizer’s chief executive officer Jeffrey Kindler announced that the company would not be attempting to make big acquisitions, because they’re “disruptive,” according to published reports.

Pfizer faces the loss of the patent for the world’s best selling drug Lipitor in 2010, which had sales of over $12 billion last year and also faces a decreasing pipeline of new drugs.

The company though has been making small acquisitions, which include two biotech companies, Serenex and Encysive. These two investments will help Pfizer gain new treatments for cancer and other diseases, but the drugs for the companies are in early-stage development. Also, Kindler mentioned Pfizer is looking into biogenerics, calling it an “opportunity.”

Pfizer also plans to expand its marketing presence in the overseas market, particularly in China, where the company intends to spread its operations into 650 cities, nearly six times the current number.

The company has also been cutting back. It has increased outsourcing of its drug manufacturing to 17 percent, from less than 10 percent three years ago. It has also closed or sold 21 factories since 2004 and reduced its staff by 21 percent to 86,600 over the same period of time. And finally, Pfizer had shut down one-third of its research site, to a current total of 10.