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Pfizer CFO said on an earnings call with analysts that his company is looking for acquisitions worth between a few billion to several billion dollars.

Read the original:  Genzyme and Pfizer, Kissin’ in a Tree? Probably Not.

Pfizer exec Martin Mackay is decamping for cross-Atlantic rival AstraZeneca, where he’ll be president of R&D, a new position, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

Mackay held the same title at Pfizer from 2007 to 2009, but in the wake of the company’s Wyeth acquisition, he split the top job …

View original post here: London Calling: Pfizer’s Mackay to Head R&D at AstraZeneca

The reductions fall under Pfizer’s previously announced intention to eventually eliminate 19,000 positions.

See the rest here: Pfizer Will Cut 6,000 Jobs as Part of Wyeth Consolidation

Merck today highlighted cardiovascular pipeline with six molecules in late-stage development. Among them: anacetrapib — a molecular cousin to a drug Pfizer once had in development.

Here is the original post:  Merck To Move Ahead on a Heart Drug Where Pfizer Failed

AstraZeneca has reached across the Atlantic to poach a well-regarded neuroscientist from Pfizer to lead its drug discovery, research and early development efforts, according to people familiar with the hire.

Menelas Pangalos was chief scientific officer in charge of neuroscience research at Pfizer, but only for a few months. He had just come from Wyeth, as part of its takeover by Pfizer last year.

Bad news on the Alzheimer’s drug development front: Pfizer and Medivation announced negative results from a large late-stage trial of Dimebon, thought to be a promising treatment more potent than those currently on the market.

Dimebon, you may remember, got its start a quarter-century ago as a Russian cold medicine that Pfizer plunked down $225 million for licensing rights in 2008. The deal also included potential milestone payments of as much as $500 million.

Pfizer has won FDA approval of a product developed by Wyeth, which Pfizer bought last year for $68 billion. And it’s a biggie — a updated version of the world’s best-selling vaccine Prevnar. See the Pfizer announcement.

With an apparent eye on Pfizer’s experience early this month, Merck officials made one thing abundantly clear during the morning’s earnings report: “Nothing in our guidance has changed,” CFO Peter Kellogg said on a conference call with analysts.

Generic maker Teva Pharmaceutical posted higher quarterly results that included stronger sales of its branded multiple sclerosis treatment Copaxone.

A bunch of the blockbuster drugs that carried the drug industry for the past decade are about to go off patent. As we’ve noted along with everybody else, that’s going to be tough for pharma companies.

(See, for example, the news this week from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb, which over the next two years will face generic competition on the two biggest drugs in the world, Lipitor and Plavix.)