Pfizer names Read CEO as it braces for loss of Lipitor

Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drugmaker, named Ian C. Read chief executive officer as the company prepares for the potential loss of nearly 24 percent of its sales next year when Lipitor, its best-selling drug, faces generic competition for the first time.

Read, 57, the head of Pfizer's global biopharmaceutical operations since 2006, will replace Jeffrey B. Kindler, who has retired from the company, the New York-based company said in a statement yesterday.

Pfizer will lose patent protection next year for the cholesterol drug Lipitor, which accounted for $11.4 billion of sales in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. To supplement its pipeline, Pfizer paid $68 billion last year for rival Wyeth. The acquisition failed to reverse a 36 percent decline in the company's stock under Kindler.

"The stock has underperformed," said Les Funtleyder, a Miller Tabak & Co. portfolio manager in New York, in a telephone interview Sunday. "Pharma in general and Pfizer in particular have had a tough couple of years."

Ian C. Read (Bloomberg)

Kindler, 55, was named CEO on July 28, 2006. Since then, the shares have fallen to $16.73 as of Dec. 3 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Months after Kindler took the helm, Pfizer halted development of its most promising drug in testing, the cholesterol drug torcetrapib, which was intended to help Pfizer offset the loss of sales from Lipitor. To cut costs, Kindler has fired more than 14,000 workers, closed research labs and manufacturing plants. In 2012, Viagra will also face generic competition.

"Now that we are about to complete a full year of operating Pfizer and Wyeth together, I have concluded the time is right to turn the leadership of the company over to Ian Read," Kindler said in a statement.

Pfizer has had four setbacks this year in developing its research pipeline.

Last month, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. halted a trial of their experimental blood thinner, apixaban, after an increase in bleeding outweighed benefits for patients who recently suffered a heart attack or severe chest pain. The treatment was being tested to prevent heart complications in patients with a condition known as acute coronary syndrome.

In March, the company said its experimental Alzheimer's drug Dimebon, which analysts said could have generated $5 billion in annual sales, failed to help patients in a late-stage test. That same month, Sutent, approved for kidney and stomach cancers, failed in two studies to shrink tumors of the breast, and the experimental drug figitumumab didn't help lung cancer patients.

Pfizer shares may rise as a result of the change, Miller Tabak's Funtleyder said.

"What is surprising is the timing," Funtleyder said. "This seems sudden."

Read has been at Pfizer since 1978, and has run Pfizer's businesses in Latin America, Europe and Africa. (Bloomberg)