82 patients taking a combination of Torcetrapib died, ...51 on Lipitor alone

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82 patients taking a combination of Torcetrapib died, ...51 on

Lipitor alone

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story_business_island.asp?

j=203190330 & p=zx3y9yx36

Pfizer facing financial pressure after axed drug trial

04/12/2006 - 07:36:32

Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, will be

forced to shed staff and speed up merger and licensing deals,

analysts say, after the company ended trials of a key cholesterol

drug.

The analysts differed on how much they believed Pfizer stock would

fall when it opened today.

Barbara of Deutsche Bank said she believed the dividend yield of

roughly 4% would keep shares from a free fall, but another analyst

estimated the stock could plunge to $20 a share. Pfizer shares closed

on Friday at $28.90 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The drug giant said on Saturday that an independent board monitoring

a study for cholesterol treatment Torcetrapib recommended that the

work end because of an unexpected number of deaths.

According to Pfizer spokesman Fitzhenry, 82 patients taking a

combination of Torcetrapib died, compared with 51 deaths in the arm

of the study where patients were taking Lipitor alone.

Each arm of the study had 7,500 patients. Pfizer said that the study

did not raise any questions about Lipitor's safety.

Torcetrapib was designed to raise levels of HDL, or " good

cholesterol " . Pfizer has two other products in early development to

raise HDL using the same method as Torcetrapib.

It is too soon say whether or not they will be affected by the

compound's demise because it still unclear what caused the patient

deaths in the trial.

Torcetrapib had been shown to raise blood pressure in some patients

but the other two compounds have not displayed such a side effect,

according to Pfizer.

In a statement issued yesterday, the US Food and Drug Administration

said it supported Pfizer's decision to suspend the trial and said it

would work with the company and other drugmakers developing similar

products to ensure there were procedures in place to identify any

safety problems quickly.

The drug-trial axe is devastating to Pfizer, which had been counting

on Torcetrapib to revitalise stagnant sales hurt by numerous patent

expirations on key products.

It has said it was spending around €625.5m to develop Torcetrapib,

which was supposed to fill the void when its best-selling drug,

cholesterol treatment Lipitor, loses patent protection in either 2010

or 2011. Lipitor sales totalled €9.5bn last year.

" This is obviously unfortunate because this was the biggest

opportunity in their pipeline, " said .

" Clearly there is more pressure on them to do cost-cutting. "

Two months ago, Pfizer said it would reveal plans in January to turn

the company into a more nimble organisation that would go beyond the

programme announced last year to cut €3bn in expenses by 2008.

Patent expirations will cost the company €10.8bn annually between

2005 and 2007.

In the statement Pfizer issued on Saturday, chief executive Jeff

Kindler said the company's pace of transformation would be hastened

because of the loss of Torcetrapib, although he did not give any

specifics. Last week, Pfizer announced it was cutting 2,200 US sales-

force jobs.

said Pfizer, which employs about 100,000 people, may shed as

many 10,000 people in the near future. She said she expected Pfizer

to increase its annual dividend from 96c to $1.10 per share in the

next few weeks in the hope of putting a floor on the stock.

Napodano, an analyst at Zacks Independent Research, did not

think the yield would be enough to prop up the shares.

He said that at the end of last month Pfizer pulled out of its deal

with drugmaker Organon to develop schizophrenia treatment Asenapine.

Napodano said he expected that drug to add €386.2m in sales by 2010,

while by that time Torcetrapib's sales would total €2.2bn.

" Losing Asenapine was a hole in the boat. Now they have hit an

iceberg, " said Napodano.