Monday, January 26, 2009

Pfizer to pay biggest fine in drug company history: $2.3 billion

Guess this was forgotten in all the hustle about buying Wyeth (and well planned by Pfizer public relations):

Pfizer U.S. reported revenues were $5.3 billion in fourth-quarter 2008, an amazing decrease of 8% compared with the year-ago quarter.

Pfizer also took a $2.3 billion pre-tax and after-tax charge resulting from an agreement in principle with the Office of Michael Sullivan, the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, to resolve investigations regarding allegations of past off-label promotional practices concerning Bextra, as well as other open investigations.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that they only name the Pharmacia legacy drug (Bextra) and list all the other drugs-- which I've heard are exclusively Pfizer legacy drugs only, and some very familiar monster selling drugs but they're simply glossed over in a class of "as well as other open investigations".

I guess that timing the release of this information with their Wyeth announcement wasn't the only PR spin for consumers, investors and public opinion at large. Only name the one drug that everyone already knows has been under investigation since at least 2004 when all Cox-2s' dangers began surfacing, gloss over everything else, and then hurry and move on to Wyeth deal.

CNBC may have been the only one to question Kindler without kissing his feet entirely, but why were there not more questions about the details of this $2.3 billion set aside for "how many other 'open investigations' and what all do they consist of?"

Wouldn't it be important for CNBC viewing investors to know how strong or weak Pfizer may be based on which other of their drugs might be involved in this settlement? Oh well, I guess not, or surely CNBC, CNNFN, Fox or some other business reporter-- even PBS-- would have told us that this was important to know and what we should think about it, you know, the same way the economy imploded because nobody thought for themselves but just mindlessly waited to see if Jim Cramer told us to buy Lehman Brothers stock or not . . .