Pfizer's Shanghai R&D Site To Serve As R&D Hub For Asia

PERTH, Australia - Pfizer's Shanghai R&D site will remain the central R&D hub for Asia, Pfizer Head of Asia R&D Steve Yang told PharmAsia News.

Pfizer announced Nov. 9 the locations of the combined company's five main R&D hubs and revealed that it would cut 15 percent of its R&D staff following its acquisition of Wyeth ( (Also see "Pfizer Selects Sites for its Post-Merger Global R&D Network" - Pink Sheet, 9 Nov, 2009.), Nov. 9, 2009).

"Shanghai will remain the focal point of R&D in Asia in our global R&D network, and we're certainly reaffirming that message to our colleagues locally," Yang said in an interview following a Town Hall Meeting at the R&D Center in Shanghai Nov. 10.

"There are five main research hubs and there are nine additional specialized sites, which are distributed around the world, and Shanghai is one of such sites, so we have a range of R&D functions," he added.

The Shanghai Town Hall meeting was led by Yang and China R&D General Manager Tan Lingshi to address questions regarding some of the specific points related to the change and how Shanghai's position will change.

The Shanghai site will support all disease areas for global clinical development for Pfizer and will continue to support local research collaborations.

"We do have a unique mission to push academic collaborations and some of those are dedicated to give us a better understanding of local diseases that are more prevalent in Asia or in China, so that is part of our research collaboration effort," Yang said.

He clarified that as part of the site's mission, many of those collaborations are managed by employees at the Shanghai site, which has roughly 350 FTEs.

Yang could not give specifics on how those numbers might change, but said that going forward resources at specific sites would be determined by a "variety of factors including the portfolio demand as well as different global alliances and function strategies, and those plans are being determined as we speak."

Staff Reductions Unlikely In China

Yang said that he didn't envision any reductions in force at the Shanghai site, and noted that further analysis would clarify "new capabilities" going forward.

"Overall, the new strategy to have two interdependent R&D divisions, pharma therapeutics and biotherapeutics, to work closely together across the globe to deliver new medicines for small molecules as well as macromolecules across a range of disease areas, and to make such R&D efforts work, we have to define the new site footprint to ensure the most efficient use of resources and also access to talent and innovation and cutting-edge science around the globe."

Pfizer also has R&D operations in other parts of Asia, including a Phase I clinical research unit in Singapore and a dedicated development unit in Japan, which is part of the company's primary care business unit.

"So there are R&D related functions and work done in many Asian countries to support local, regional and global clinical studies," Yang said.

When asked how Pfizer's virtual network approach to R&D would fit into the new R&D structure, Yang said from an operational point of view, it probably won't have much of an immediate impact. However, the combined R&D organization will place even more emphasis on external R&D, he said in an earlier interview (Also see "Ink Drying On Pfizer-Wyeth Deal As Companies Announce Day One In New Life Together" - Scrip, 16 Oct, 2009.).

Pfizer's virtual R&D network approach in China has given the company significant flexibility in its research collaborations with contract research organizations and academia serve multiple disease areas including oncology, neuroscience, anti-infectives as well as cardiovascular and other areas, Yang said, noting that the Asia team is also studying "unique diseases more prevalent in Asia such as liver disease."

A thorough portfolio review will occur unit by unit, and decisions will be announced as soon as possible, he said, noting that the emerging markets business unit will also be looking at other global opportunities "trying to leverage what we have learned in China and Asia and around the globe."

He said the Shanghai site mainly supports projects that have originated in the West.

When asked how Wyeth's R&D partnerships in India would fit into Pfizer's Asia R&D program, Yang said that the company is trying to figure out how Wyeth's R&D partners in India (for example, Accenture and GVK Biosciences) will fit into Pfizer's future partnership network based on portfolio needs and other factors.

Pfizer announced four research/training partnerships in 2009: Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences for life science innovation on a range of basic science research fields relevant to drug discovery; Fudan University to establish a graduate program in clinical data management and statistical programming; a state-run R&D laboratory in South Korea to study new drug targets for gastric and liver cancers; and a joint effort with the Peking University Health Sciences Center to establish the Peking University-Pfizer Quantitative Pharmacology Education Center to train scientists in quantitative pharmacology (PharmAsia News, July 30, 2009).

- Tamra Sami ([email protected])