Recent developments in pharma consolidation, generics competition and pharma layoffs have taken the focus off of pharma’s drug pipelines for some time, so it was quite refreshing when Pfizer’s announced its new drug pipeline this week.
Pfizer’s pipeline commits to high-priority areas as announced in January 2009
Pfizer has been through a roller-coaster of a year – facing a challenging acquisition, a large restructuring, competition with generics manufacturers and several layoffs amid a falling economy. Pfizer’s pipeline follows a similar model to what was announced in January of 2009 right after it signed-off on buying up Wyeth. The company’s pipeline now lists 10 areas across which several drugs are being developed.
- Allergy & Respiratory
- Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases (CVMED)
- Gastrointestinal
- Genitourinary
- Infectious Diseases
- Inflammation
- Neuroscience
- Oncology
- Ophthalmology, and
- Pain
22 Neuroscience treatments in Pfizer pipeline
Pfizer’s Neuroscience pipeline constitutes the following disease areas and drug candidates:
Alzheimer’s Disease
The Alzheimer’s Disease effort is currently run by Rinat Biotherapeutics in South San Francisco. Although Pfizer currently sells Aricept, the company is targeting several other anti-amyloids for treating Alzheimer’s disease.
Bipolar Disorder, Manic Depressive Illness
Pfizer is looking to expand the use of its antipsychotic Geodon (ziprasidone) into bipolar disorder treatment. Pfizer will focus on developing Geodon for patient stability and will develop other treatments for the manic stages of the disorder.
Epilepsy
Pfizer is developing Lyrica as a monotherapy for epilepsy, although it is is currently approved for adjunctive therapy.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Pfizer currently has two treatments in the pipeline for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) which are exploring a new mechanistic approach to its treatment.
Schizophrenia
Pfizer is looking to move beyond using Geodon (its bipolar disorder treatment) for Schizophrenia due to various side effects in patients. The company now has 6 drugs currently in the pipeline in Phase 1 and 2. Pfizer expects to deliver these candidates as more “wholesome” treatments that work in all patients and do not cause significant side-effects.
The following table shows a profile of where all of the drugs stand in the pipeline:
| Phase 1 | Phase II | Phase III | Registration | |
| Alzheimer’s Disease | 2 | 6 (1 Biologic and 1 Vaccine) | 2 (1 Biologic) | |
| Bipolar Disorder | 1 | 1 | ||
| Epilepsy | 1 | |||
| Generalized Anxiety Disorder | 1 | 1 | ||
| Huntington’s disease | 1 | |||
| Schizophrenia | 4 | 2 | ||
| Total Neuroscience treatments |
8 | 8 | 4 | 2 |
With one of the largest acquisitions the industry has seen, Pfizer has worked through 2009 growing into new areas and moving out of the old. This shows that Pfizer has been able to manage a huge change during tough times, even though it might seem like a big company that cannot be very nimble. With a strong pipeline in the works, Pfizer stands to maintain its leading position in the market for quite some years to come.
