Pfizer restructures R&D
By Pfizer, which recently a | 20 Nov 2000
Pfizer, which recently acquired Warner-Lambert in a $90-billion deal earlier this year to become the world's biggest drugs group, has created a new structure that it hopes will help it manage its $4.5 billion research-and-development budget better.
Under the new structure, the company aims to retain its basic initial drug research in about eight separate discovery sites. However, for the drug development, which involves testing the drug on human volunteers, the company proposes to create a new centralised site in New London, Connecticut, to reap the benefits of economy of scale.
In creating this structure, Pfizer is seemingly following the footsteps of another global pharma major, GlaxoSmithKline, which will have the second-biggest R&D budget when the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham is finally given anti-trust clearance.
According to industry sources, GlaxoSmithKline is expected to take the idea a stage further by making each site, to be called centres for excellence in drug discovery, competing profit centres. They will buy and sell services from the central organisation.
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