Ink Drying On Pfizer-Wyeth Deal As Companies Announce Day One In New Life Together

PERTH, Australia - With the ink still drying on approvals worldwide, including in the U.S., for the Pfizer-Wyeth deal, Pfizer announced it has now completely merged with Wyeth and will mark Oct. 16 as Day One in their new life together.

The Federal Trade Commission cleared Pfizer's $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth, Oct. 14, requiring only that Pfizer sell half of Wyeth's animal health business to Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica. Pfizer announced last month that it would relinquish these assets (Also see "FTC Approves the Pfizer-Wyeth Deal And Keeps Their Human Drug Portfolio Intact" - Pink Sheet, 14 Oct, 2009.).

"Initially we were planning a short buffer preparation time," Pfizer Head of Asia R&D Steve Yang, who led the global R&D integration, told PharmAsia News. "But to our surprise, we were able to so quickly start Day One - we just finished the first global webcast with our colleagues in Shanghai and elsewhere in Asia."

Pfizer is now a more diversified healthcare company, with product offerings across the globe's developed and emerging markets. The combined company has strengthened capabilities in biotechnology, vaccines, consumer healthcare, nutrition and animal health.

"On the commercial side, there will be two commercial groups, one focused on the biopharmaceutical business, the other focused on diversified business," Yang said.

The Biopharmaceuticals Business units are Emerging Markets, Established Products, Oncology, Primary Care and Specialty Care, which includes vaccines. The Diversified Businesses are Animal Health, Capsugel, Consumer Healthcare and Nutrition.

Two Interdependent Global R&D Divisions

"From the R&D side, we'll have two interdependent R&D divisions: one focused on pharma therapeutics and one focused on bio therapeutics. That is certainly a very unique construct that allows us to leverage the strength of both R&D organizations of the legacy companies and allows us to create additional value by trying to find new opportunity space and leverage new technologies," Yang said.

The new PharmaTherapeutics R&D division will be led by Martin Mackay, who is the current president of R&D at Pfizer, and the new BioTherapeutics R&D division will be led by Mikael Dolsten, who is the current head of R&D at Wyeth.

The newly created BioTherapeutics R&D Division will have a range of new technologies, which will "provide additional capabilities, new medicines and vaccines that will allow us to serve an even broader patient population and unmet medical needs."

When asked how the vaccines group would fit into Pfizer, Yang said that it was "a very careful, dedicated balance in that we empower the general managers of the business units to really drive for success, but for each of the business units we also take a "One Pfizer" approach to try to support each other. Certainly for the two new R&D divisions that is going to be the modus operandi. Each division will work interdependently and they will each have a set of research units and technology units that focus on unique disease areas or technologies. There will also be different R&D functions that are imbedded in each of the two new R&D divisions that will support both."

"For example, I lead the Asia R&D group, which will be part of the PharmaTherapeutics R&D Division, but my mission will be to support both R&D divisions in Asia, and so that will give me a broader set of remits for looking for both partnerships and opportunities not only for small molecules but also for macromolecules.

Yang said he will remain in Shanghai and his role will stay the same, reporting to Martin Mackay. "The difference is, previously we had one global R&D division and now we have two, but those two R&D divisions will support each other. I will report into the PharmaTherapeutics Division, but certainly my team will support the efforts of both R&D divisions, and that is also true for many of the R&D functions."

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.

"We actually have created a new group under the BioTherapeutics Division called External Innovation, and so that will allow us to focus more on tapping into external innovation, not only in Asia - which we certainly have been doing - but also around the world."

Pfizer Of Today And Tomorrow In Asia

Pfizer currently has R&D facilities in Shanghai and a Phase I unit in Singapore as well as development efforts in Japan. Pfizer's Development Japan group focuses on clinical development work in Japan and will report to the company's Primary Care Business Unit. Global clinical research operations groups will continue to support global, regional and local clinical trials and will remain part of the R&D global organization.

Pfizer will make another announcement in 30 to 60 days about how it intends to shape its future global footprint and the processes that will support its R&D divisions.

"Those decisions are being made after our R&D leaders have a chance to review the combined portfolio post Day One as we speak," Yang said while noting that the two companies have not yet had the opportunity to peruse confidential portfolio information.

Wyeth is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer Inc. The merger of local Wyeth and Pfizer entities may be pending in various jurisdictions and integration is subject to completion of various local legal and regulatory obligations.

- Tamra Sami ([email protected])