Pfizer loses $10-billion-a-year revenue in November this year as its major cholesterol drug Lipitor patent expires. This will lead to cut huge sales of the company. Due to a lot of major patent expirations, the combined sale of 10 mega medicine is nearly $50 billion which will be affected. On the other hand, the industry a few years ago was one of the world’s most profitable business sectors, and now it’s under pressure to reinvent their position. The drug companies will now face a drought in research discoveries and there will be pressure from insurers and the government to hold down prices. With the expiring patents, the operations of pharma are worsening badly. There has been a loss of 53,000 jobs last year and 61,000 in 2009. The industry is in a panic state as they don’t have enough revenue to sustain their research and development. The FDA has approved few new drugs so far with Pfizer and Lilly the major one to suffer loss last year. To fix their domains in innovative core Pfizer’s new president, Ian C. Read is focusing on smaller niches in cancer, inflammation, neuroscience and branded generics. The company is slashing 30 percent of its research in the next two years to gain prospective profits. With the low cost generics consumers should see a financial benefit when they replace the expensive elite drugs. This may suffer the consumers in long term as the companies will reduce research and not produce drugs. Pfizer is now returning money through stock buybacks and dividends to their shareholder which amounts to around $20 billion stockpile of cash. During the whole process, Pfizer’s and Merck’s share prices dropped about 60 percent. Companies are now focusing on personalized medicines and forming more partnerships. But, the pharmaceutical companies are being urged to cut prices and improve reimbursement terms for lucrative pills.
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