History and stock price of Pfizer Inc. (PFE)

On Manhattan’s 42nd Street, Pfizer Inc., an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology conglomerate, has its corporate headquarters. Charles Pfizer (1824–1906) and his relative Charles F. Erhart (1821–1891) founded the corporation in New York in 1849. For immunology, cancer, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology, Pfizer develops and manufactures medications and vaccines. Several of the company’s best-selling goods bring in more over $1 billion in yearly sales. According to the company’s 2020 projections, 52 percent of its sales would come from the United States, 6 percent will come from China, and 36 percent will be generated elsewhere. Since 2004, Pfizer has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index. The Fortune 500 lists the firm at number 64, while the Forbes Global 2000 has it at number 49.

HISTORY

The years 1849–1950 were marked by Charles Pfizer (1824–1906). The dawn of time

After moving to the United States in 1849, Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart founded Pfizer with their relatives from Ludwigsburg, Germany. Anti-parasitic santonin was produced in the company’s Williamsburg offices on Bartlett Street. Citric acid production propelled Pfizer’s ascent in the 1880s, but it was an immediate success. Since 1898, Williamsburg has been a part of Brooklyn, but Pfizer opted to relocate its headquarters from Flushing Avenue to Williamsburg in the 1960s in order to expand its laboratory and factory. More than half a century after it was established, the Brooklyn facility was shut down in 2009. After the breakthrough of citric acid, Erhart and Pfizer built their main residences on Clinton Hill, an affluent neighbourhood known for its concentration of Gilded Age wealth. Newport, Rhode Island, where he died in 1906, was where he went on vacation and where he spent his free time. His summers were spent there.

In 1881, Pfizer expanded its operations from New York City to Chicago, Illinois, a year before this decision was taken.

In 1906, sales of $3 million set a new high.

Pfizer began looking for an alternative supply of calcium citrate, which it purchased from Italy to make citric acid, during World War I and eventually found one in Germany. Researchers at Pfizer were only able to commercialise this technology in 1919, when they found a fungus that could ferment sugar into citric acid. Consequently, the company developed a deeper understanding of fermentation techniques. The ability to mass produce penicillin, an antibiotic, was put to good use during World War II to treat the wounds of Allied soldiers.

The firm was formed in Delaware on June 2, 1942.

Pharmaceutical development and worldwide growth were the focus from 1950 to 1980.

Pfizer sought new antibiotics with more profit potential due to the reduction of penicillin’s market value. In 1950, Pfizer made the breakthrough discovery of oxytetracycline, which transformed the business from a maker of fine chemicals into a pharmaceutical research powerhouse. Pfizer established an in vitro synthesis-focused drug discovery initiative to support its fermentation technology development. Terre Haute, Indiana’s 700-acre (2.8 km2) farm and research centre was formed as an animal health division in 1959.

As early as the 1950s, Pfizer had established offices in the United Kingdom and the United States as well as in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Mexico. New Groton, Connecticut, was chosen as the location for the company’s medical research laboratory activities in 1960. It was Pfizer’s first $1 billion product, Feldene (piroxicam), a prescription anti-inflammatory drug, when it was introduced in 1980.

John Powers, Jr. succeeded John McKeen as CEO of the corporation in 1965.

For many decades, the company had a public-private partnership with New York City that included construction of low- and middle-income housing, rehabilitation of apartment buildings for homeless people, and the establishment of a charter school in an effort to revitalise the area around its Brooklyn plant.

Edmund T. Pratt Jr. was named CEO of the firm in 1972, replacing his father, Edmund T. Pratt Sr. John Jr. Powers of Powers, Inc.

1980–2000: Viagra, Zoloft, and Lipitor were all developed in the same time period.

Since its release in 1981, Diflucan (fluconazole) has been used to treat a wide range of severe fungal diseases including candidiasis, pityriasis, dermatophytosis, and histoplasmosis.

A macrolide antibiotic approved as a first-line therapy by the Infectious Diseases Society of America for certain types of community-associated pneumonia, Zithromax (azithromycin), was purchased by Pfizer from Pliva in 1986.

Viagra (sildenafil) was developed by Pfizer scientists Peter Dunn and Albert Wood in 1989 to treat high blood pressure and angina, a chest discomfort linked with coronary artery disease, as well as to treat pulmonary hypertension. Heart medicine patents were issued for it by the UK in 1991. Heart disease therapy was shown to be ineffective, however erections rose in patients who had taken this medicine for many days in clinical studies. In 1996, it was granted a patent in the United States and was given the green light by the FDA in March of the following year. A spokesman for the medicine was appointed by Pfizer in December 1998. Viagra’s patents are set to expire in the year 2020.

Edmund T. Pratt Jr. stepped down as CEO of the corporation in 1991, and William C. Steere, Jr. took his place.

SSRI antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline), created by Pfizer chemists Kenneth Koe and Willard Welch nine years previously, was introduced to the market by Pfizer in 1991. The most common conditions for which sertraline is given include major depressive disorder in adults undergoing outpatient treatment, as well as anxiety disorders such as panic attacks and social phobia in both adults and children. More than 100 million individuals had been treated with the medicine in 2005, the year before it was made generic. In the summer of 2006, the Zoloft patent was set to expire.

Eisai and Pfizer acquired FDA clearance for donepezil under the trade name Aricept in 1996 for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in conjunction with Eisai.

One of Pfizer’s hypertension drugs, Norvasc (amlodipine), has also been approved by the FDA.

Sertraline (Zoloft), an antidepressant, is available in bottles.

For the treatment of high cholesterol, Lipitor (atorvastatin) was co-marketed by the business in 1997 with Warner–Lambert. In clinical studies, atorvastatin reduced LDL-C levels more than any of the other statins, in spite of the fact that it was the fifth one to be created. Lipitor was the best-selling medicine of all time when its patent expired in 2011, with sales totaling $125 billion over a period of 14.5 years.

Expansion in the years 2000–2010

Henry McKinnell replaced William C. Steere, Jr. as CEO of the corporation in 2001.

Lyrica (pregabalin), an anticonvulsant and anxiolytic drug used to treat epilepsy, neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, restless leg syndrome, and generalised anxiety disorder, was approved by the FDA in 2004. Despite generic manufacturers’ best efforts, the US patent on Lyrica was ultimately maintained in 2014, giving it an additional year of protection until 2018. The medication made $4.2 billion in sales in 2016.

Jeff Kindler replaced Henry McKinnell as CEO of the business in July 2006.

Torcetrapib was a medicine developed by Pfizer that increased the synthesis of HDL, or “good cholesterol,” and thereby decreased LDL, a lipid believed to be linked to heart disease. Torcetrapib was discontinued on December 3rd, 2006. More people died than predicted in a Phase III clinical trial including 15,000 individuals, and the mortality rate of patients receiving torcetrapib + Lipitor (82 deaths during the study) was 60% higher than that of patients on Lipitor alone (82 deaths during the research) (52 deaths during the study). Pfizer wasted over $1 billion developing the unsuccessful medicine and its stock price plunged 11% on the day of the release, even though Lipitor was not specifically linked to the findings.

During the period from 2007 to 2010, Pfizer spent $3.3 million on legal expenses and investigations and collected $5.1 million, while another $5 million was pending in civil cases against counterfeit prescription medicine producers. Pfizer has enlisted the help of customs and narcotics specialists from all across the globe to seek down counterfeits and gather evidence for possible civil trademark infringement lawsuits.

Pfizer’s Kalamazoo, Michigan, manufacturing site reported 275 layoffs in July 2008. Prior to being bought by Pharmacia, Kalamazoo was the international headquarters of Upjohn Company.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

Pfizer purchased Warner-Lambert for $116 billion in cash in June of 2000. Pfizer sold or transferred shares in many minor goods, including RID (a shampoo for the treatment of head lice, sold to Bayer) and Warner-antidepressant Lambert’s Celexa, to comply with antitrust authorities at the Federal Trade Commission (which competes with Zoloft). At the time, this transaction produced the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical firm.

Pfizer purchased Searle and SUGEN as part of the Pharmacia-Pfizer merger in 2003. An anaerobic bacterium or protozoa may be treated with Flagyl, a nitroimidazole antibiotic medicine created by Searle. A COX-2 inhibitor and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication (NSAID) produced by Searle, Celecoxib (Celebrex), is used to treat osteoarthritis pain and inflammation, acute pain in adults, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, painful menstruation, and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. [42] When it came to inhibiting signal transmission, SUGEN, a firm that specialised in protein-kinase inhibitors, had paved the way with the first tiny compounds mimicking ATP. Pfizer shut down the SUGEN plant in 2003, resulting in the loss of over 300 employment and the transfer of many projects to Pfizer. For instance, in January of that year, the FDA granted human use approval to the cancer drug sunitinib (Sutent). Under addition to SU11654 (Toceranib), Crizotinib, an ALK inhibitor, was also developed in the SUGEN programme.

The acquisition of PowerMed was announced in October of that year.

Pfizer became the world’s biggest pharmaceutical business by purchasing Wyeth for $68 billion in cash and shares, including the assumption of debt.

Among the pneumococcal conjugate vaccines that Pfizer acquired from Wyeth was Prevnar 13, which is used to prevent invasive pneumococcal infections. Pneumococcal invasive infections in children under the age of five in the United States decreased by 75% after Wyeth’s launch of the initial, 7-valent vaccination formulation in 2000. Patents were issued in India in 2017 for an upgraded version of the vaccine released in 2010. There are now 13 bacterial types covered by Prevnar 13, making it more comprehensive than the initial Prevnar 7 formulation. Among children under the age of five, the incidence of invasive infections has dropped by half by 2012.

New discoveries and acquisitions are expected between 2010 and 2020.

It was in 2010 when Ian Read was appointed CEO of the corporation.

A Pfizer research and development centre in Sandwich, Kent, which employed 2,400 people at the time, was shut down in February 2011.

Pfizer paid $3.6 billion for King Pharmaceuticals in cash in March 2011. The EpiPen is one of King’s emergency injectables.

CML (chronic myelogenous leukaemia), which affects predominantly older persons and is uncommon, has been authorised by the FDA for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukaemia (Bosulif) on September 4, 2012.

[58] Xeljanz, a tofacitinib, was approved by the FDA in November 2012 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and ulcerative colitis. Adalimumab was the top-selling medicine in direct-to-consumer advertising in the United States in January of this year, with sales of $1.77 billion (Humira).

The Agriculture Division of Pfizer and subsequently Pfizer Animal Health, Zoetis, went public on February 1, 2013, generating $2.2 billion in an initial public offering.

Pfizer completed the spin-off of its remaining Zoetis shareholding in 2013.

Pfizer acquired Innopharma for $225 million plus up to $135 million in milestone payments in September 2014, expanding its line of generic and injectable medications as a result of the transaction.

To better protect against human cytomegalovirus, the business stated on January 5th, 2015 that it will purchase a majority stake in Redvax. Palbociclib (Ibrance) was approved by the FDA in February 2015 for the treatment of certain forms of breast cancer by the firm. It was reported in March 2015 that the business and Eli Lilly and Company will re-start their partnership on the Tanezumab Phase III study. Medical DNA nanotechnology is being developed by Pfizer with a facility at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. The business purchased the meningococcal vaccines Nimenrix and Mencevax from GlaxoSmithKline in June 2015 for around $130 million. Pfizer paid $17 billion for Hospira in September 2015, which included the assumption of debt. When it came to generic injectable medicines, Hospira was the world’s top manufacturer. After announcing a $160 billion merger agreement on November 23, 2015, Pfizer and Allergan announced that they will be merging. Allergan’s Republic of Ireland domicile would be maintained by the amalgamated business, resulting in a corporation tax rate of 12.5 percent for the new company. It was planned that Allergan will buy Pfizer and rebrand as “Pfizer, plc” as the result of the reverse merger. As of April 6, 2016, Allergan and Pfizer have cancelled their merger deal due to new rules implemented by the Obama administration and United States Department of the Treasury (the extent to which companies could move their headquarters overseas in order to reduce the amount of taxes they pay).

After purchasing Anacor Pharmaceuticals for $5.2 billion in June 2016, the company’s product line now includes anti-inflammation and anti-immune medications.

When BIND Therapeutics filed for bankruptcy in August 2016, the business offered $40 million for its assets. [90] The acquisition of Bamboo Therapeutics for $645 million in the same month expanded the company’s gene therapy portfolio. Medivation, a cancer medicine business, was purchased by the corporation in September 2016 for $14 billion. OncoImmunelicenced its anti-CTLA4 monoclonal antibody, ONC-392, to the firm in October 2016. Pfizer purchased AstraZeneca’s small-molecule antibiotics division in December 2016 for $1.575 billion.

Alzheimer’s and Parkinsonism (a sign of Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses) therapy research at Pfizer was put on hold in January 2018. According to the firm, around 300 researchers would be laid go. Enzalutamide, developed by Pfizer and Astellas Pharma, was authorised by the Food and Drug Administration in July 2018 for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer in July 2018. Pfizer and BioNTech inked a research and development partnership in August 2018 to work together on mRNA-based influenza vaccines. Albert Bourla succeeded his mentor Ian Read as CEO on January 1st, 2019, after being elevated in October 2018.

Therachon’s recombinant human fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 molecule, which is intended to treat disorders such as achondroplasia, was bought by the business in July 2019 for up to $810 million.

Also in July, Pfizer paid $10.6 billion to purchase Array Biopharma, a company that specialises in cancer.

Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline combined their consumer health businesses in August of this year, creating a joint venture controlled by GlaxoSmithKline at 68% and Pfizer at 32%, with intentions to go public. The acquisition of Novartis’ part in the GSK-Novartis consumer healthcare joint enterprise, which was completed in 2018, was the basis for this deal. Reckitt Benckiser, Johnson & Johnson, and Proctor & Gamble were among the other corporations involved in the deal.

Anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody CS1001 is expected to be commercialised in September 2020 after the business purchased a 9.9 percent ownership in the CStone Pharmaceuticals for $200 million (HK$1.55 billion).

Arixa Pharmaceuticals was bought by the firm in October of 2020.

Pfizer and Mylan combined their off-patent branded and generic medicine company, known as Upjohn, in November 2020 using a Reverse Morris Trust structure to become Viatris, which Pfizer stockholders control 57% of.

Corporate growth and acquisitions in the years ahead, starting in 2021

Pfizer’s new logo was unveiled on January 5th, 2021. Amplyx Pharmaceuticals and Fosmanogepix, an anti-fungal drug, were bought by Pfizer in April 2021. (APX001). The acquisition of Trillium Therapeutics Inc and its immuno-oncology portfolio was announced in August by the firm for $2.3 billion ($18.50 per share). Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer acquired Arena Pharmaceuticals for $6.7 billion in cash and stock in December.