Pfizer

Birth control pills are known to be nearly 100 percent effective when taken properly, but a recall of the drugs could send a shudder through women of childbearing age. A manufacturing mix-up by Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, led to some packets being distributed with the pills out of order. That means a patient could have unknowingly skipped a dose and raised her risk of an accidental pregnancy. Pfizer has recalled about 1 million packets of Lo/Ovral-28 and its generic equivalent, but the company estimates that only about 30 packets were flawed.

A federal advisory panel recommended approval Wednesday of a rheumatoid arthritis pill that could offer patients an alternative to the injectable medicines already on the market, but several members expressed concern about safety and urged the Food and Drug Administration to require rigorous follow-up studies. The arthritis advisory committee voted 8 to 2 that the drug, known as tofacitinib, offered enough benefits to overcome potential safety risks, including higher rates of lymphoma and other cancers and serious infections.

Pfizer Inc. and a pharmacy standards group are teaming to warn consumers about the risks of counterfeit prescription medicines, which endanger the public and take money from both pharmacies and legitimate drugmakers. Pfizer Inc., whose impotence pill Viagra is widely counterfeited, and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy on Thursday announced the start of an educational campaign to explain the dangers of counterfeit drugs and help people find legitimate pharmacies online.

Pfizer halted a late-stage study of its second-best selling drug, Lyrica, as a possible treatment for a nerve pain in HIV patients. The world's largest drugmaker said Friday it was studying the drug in patients with HIV neuropathy, which is nerve damage characterized by burning pain that usually starts in the feet. An early analysis of study data showed that pain symptom improvements were nearly identical to those patients treated with a placebo. No safety concerns were raised in the study, and Pfizer said it will continue to analyze the initial results.

Pfizer rose after the world’s biggest drug maker said the Food and Drug Administration accepted the company’s filing for review of axitinib for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The company is seeking FDA approval based on studies that showed patients treated with axitinib lived longer without the disease getting worse than patients treated with an older drug.

The recession might be a little less painful for some Americans who won't lose their prescription medications if they lose their jobs. Pfizer Inc. said yesterday it will give away more than 70 of its most widely prescribed drugs, including Lipitor and Viagra, for up to a year to people who have lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking the drug for three months or more. The program comes as the unemployment rate topped 8.9 percent in April. Pfizer stands to benefit, too - by keeping its customers, and with a tax write-off that will cover much of the cost of the donations.

WASHINGTON - Influential senators working to overhaul the nation's healthcare system have investments and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The wife of Senator Chris Dodd, who is in charge of writing the Senate's bill, sits on the boards of four healthcare companies. Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl, and Orrin Hatch, financial disclosure reports showed yesterday.

NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc.'s experimental pill for rheumatoid arthritis was as effective as Humira from Abbott Laboratories and showed no new side effects in study results the company plans to submit for US approval this year. Nine study summaries were released yesterday and will be presented at the American College of Rheumatology conference in Chicago in November. In one trial, both doses of Pfizer's drug, called tofacitinib, were slightly more effective than Humira across six categories of improvement in symptoms and patient...

NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc. said yesterday it may sell its animal health and nutrition businesses in the next two years so it can focus on expanding its low-cost pharmaceuticals unit. Pfizer, which has faced pressure to eliminate some business units and return more cash to shareholders, said the moves will allow investors to get more value for the businesses. The company will also consider transactions including spinoffs and may pursue different strategies for each business. Any deals could take one to two years to complete, Pfizer said.

NEW YORK -- Pfizer Inc. will probably slash staff and accelerate merger and licensing deals, as the pressure on it to improve its financial performance intensifies after the weekend's announcement that the company has ended development of a key drug. Analysts differed on how much Pfizer stock will fall when it opens today. Barbara Ryan, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said she believed that the dividend yield of roughly 4 percent would keep shares from a free fall, but another analyst estimated that the stock could plunge to $20 a share.

NEW YORK — Protalix BioTherapeutics Inc. jumped as much as 27 percent in extended trading after the drugmaker won approval for its debut medicine, a treatment it developed with Pfizer Inc. for a rare genetic disorder. The Food and Drug Administration cleared the product called Elelyso to treat a condition caused by lack of an enzyme that can lead to spleen and liver enlargement known as Gaucher disease. The drug, chemically known as taliglucerase, is approved for Type 1 Gaucher disease affecting about 6,000 people in the United States, the agency said Tuesday.

Pfizer Inc. has announced the settlement of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit filed by Brigham Young University over development of the blockbuster painkiller Celebrex. Terms of the settlement weren't disclosed by the drug company or the Mormon Church-owned university in Utah. The settlement was announced Tuesday in a confidential agreement. BYU's lawsuit says a chemistry professor, Daniel Simmons, discovered the genetic workings of the drug in the early 1990s. It accused Pfizer of violating a research agreement the school made with predecessor companies.

Here are sales figures for the first quarter for top-selling Pfizer prescription drugs: PRODUCT NAME MAIN CONDITION/USE 1Q 2011 SALES 1Q 2010 SALES PERCENT CHANGE Lipitor High cholesterol $1.4 billion $2.4 billion down 42 percent Lyrica Fibromyalgia/pain $955 million $826 million up 16 percent Enbrel (outside U.S.) Rheumatoid arthritis $899 million $870 million up 3 percent Prevnar 7/Prevnar 13 Pneumococcal vaccine $1.08 billion $1.15 billion down 6 percent Celebrex Pain $634 million $591 million up 7 percent Viagra Erectile...

Pfizer Inc. has settled a lawsuit filed by Brigham Young University over development of the blockbuster painkiller Celebrex for $450 million, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. Terms of the settlement weren't disclosed in an announcement by the drug company and the Mormon Church-owned school in Utah. However, Pfizer said in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it was taking a $450 million charge against first-quarter earnings to settle the case.

PROFIT PLUNGE: Drugmaker Pfizer's first-quarter net income fell 19 percent to $1.79 billion, or 24 cents per share, mainly due to new generic competition and $2.6 billion in legal, restructuring and other charges. LIPITOR LOWER: In the first full quarter since blockbuster cholesterol pill Lipitor lost U.S. patent protection, its sales fell 71 percent in the U.S. and 42 percent worldwide, to $1.4 billion. But big discounts to insurers and patients helped retain a third of the market, far more than usual.

Generic competition for Pfizer Inc.'s blockbuster cholesterol pill Lipitor is starting to cut into the bottom line of the world's biggest drugmaker, as expected. The best-selling drug in the industry's history saw its U.S. patent expire on Nov. 30, ushering in a rival's generic version and an authorized one Pfizer markets with a partner. But brand-name Lipitor hung onto about a third of the market in the first quarter — far more than normally would be expected — thanks to Pfizer offering big insurer rebates and discounts to patients who stayed on its brand for...

Pfizer Inc. on Monday will add its name to an ever-growing list of corporate giants expanding research operations near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as it kicks off construction of a new complex in Kendall Square. The company will move into a 230,000-square-foot building that MIT is building at 610 Main St., where it will conduct research on drugs for type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's, and schizophrenia, among other illnesses. About 400 employees will work in the building.

The pharmaceutical research contractors Parexel International Corp. and Icon PLC will partner with Pfizer Inc., they said yesterday, becoming the two preferred providers of clinical trial implementation services to the world’s biggest drug maker. The services of Waltham-based Parexel and Icon, of Dublin, are intended to help speed drug research and make it more cost-effective. Pfizer is looking for ways to reduce its spending and improve its success in developing drugs. Research services companies have struggled during the economic downturn because large drug makers have...

Some of the world's largest drugmakers will face an uphill battle next week in their bid to revive a class of experimental pain drugs that have been sidelined by safety concerns for nearly two years. The Food and Drug Administration says there is a clear association between the nerve-blocking medications and reports of joint failure and bone deterioration that led the agency to halt studies of the drugs in 2010. However, the agency also notes that those side effects were less common when the drugs were used at lower doses, potentially leaving the door open for future use. The agency...

Eight major drugmakers are being sued by a consumer coalition claiming the companies' popular coupon programs, which lower patient co-payments for hundreds of brand-name prescription medicines, are illegal. Community Catalyst alleges the increasingly common coupons appear to save patients money but increase overall health care costs significantly and violate federal bribery laws by concealing information about the payments from health insurance plans. The coupons will eventually drive up consumers' health premiums and can cause patients to reach...