Pfizer (PFE) Offers Assets to Settle Asbestos Claims

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) will offer assets including a 281,581-square- foot building leased to a brewery to help its bankrupt, non-operating Quigley unit pay asbestos claims.

This is Quigley’s sixth outline of a plan to reorganize, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan Wednesday, which would also require Pfizer to forgive a secured claim of $86 million, a bankruptcy loan of $12.6 million and unsecured claims of $33 million. According to court papers, it would also contribute $81 million in insurance proceeds.

“Pfizer will pay $42 million to acquire a commercial property consisting of an approximately 281,581 square foot building on approximately 12 acres of land,” according to court papers. The building is leased to a distributor for “a leading brewery company,” the filing said.

The lease will generate net income of $1.9 million for the first year of the lease, with the amount increasing over time, according to the papers. The location of the building and name of the beer company aren’t disclosed.

“This ensures that asbestos claimants are not compelled to surrender their derivative claims against Pfizer without appropriate compensation,” Quigley asserted.

Pfizer closed at $20.33, gaining $0.04, or 0.20 percent.

Bristol-Myers' (BMY) Orencia Fails to Get U.K. Approval

Saying the arthritis drug Orencia isn't a cost-effective alternative to other drugs, the U.K.’s health-cost agency said they don't back the offering by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY).

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. failed to win the backing of the U.K.’s health-cost agency for treating moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis in patients who haven’t responded to one or more disease-modifying drugs.

Orencia, in combination with older medicine methotrexate, isn’t a cost-effective use of National Health Service funds compared with rival treatments, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said today in an e-mailed statement. The agency already recommends four medicines for second-line use: Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT)’ Humira, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)’s Enbrel, Merck & Co.’s (NYSE:MRK) Remicade and UCB SA (UCB)’s Cimzia.

Bristol-Myers closed Tuesday at $26.84, down $0.14, or 0.52 percent.




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Pfizer (PFE) Recalls Citalopram, Finasteride on Mislabeling

Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) via its Greenstone LLC unit announced it is recalling two drugs in the United States because they may have been incorrectly labeled by another manufacturer they hired for that purpose.

According to the company, the two drugs being recalled are Citalopram and Finasteride, with some bottles of Citalopram, a depression drug, possibly being labeled inaccurately as Finasteride, which is used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia, and vice versa,

Women who are pregnant should not handle or ingest Finasteride due to risks of side effects that can cause fetal abnormalities, warned Greenstone.

The recall is voluntary, and at this time there have been no illnesses or injuries connected to the situation.

Pfizer closed Friday at $20.35, gaining $0.05, or 0.25 percent.

Pfizer’s (PFE) Spiriva Tops Glaxo Drug for Lung Disorder

Pfizer NYSE:PFE) and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH’s drug Spiriva reduced flare-ups for patients with a lung ailment caused by smoking more than GlaxoSmithKline Plc (NYSE:GSK)’s Serevent, according to a study.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who took Spiriva went 42 days longer than those on Serevent before experiencing exacerbation of symptoms, according to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The yearlong trial, which involved 7,376 patients, also found that Spiriva cut the risk of the first severe flare-up requiring hospitalization by 28 percent.

Spiriva and Serevent are both standard treatments for COPD and work in different ways to open the airways and ease breathlessness. The study shows Spiriva may be better than Serevent for patients with moderate COPD and a history of recent exacerbations, Jadwiga Wedzicha, a professor of respiratory medicine at the University College London Medical School, wrote in an editorial published alongside the study today.

Doctors may choose Spiriva to “help minimize the risk of exacerbations from early on, enabling patients to lead active lives for longer,” Claus Vogelmeier, a professor in the department of internal medicine at the University of Marburg and the study’s lead investigator, said in a statement.

Pfizer closed Wednesday at $19.92, falling $0.02, or 0.10 percent.




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Pfizer (PFE) Reviewing All Divestiture Possibilities

Pfizer Inc.'s (NYSE:PFE) president of worldwide research and development, Mikael Dolsten, says the ongoing review of possible divestitures to strengthen the value of the company will be completed some time in 2011.

Dolsten said, "We are going through a comprehensive review that we aim to complete during this year."

Citing CEO Ian Read, Dolsten added that "we have an innovative core of our company with adjacent businesses, that each of them are doing really well.

"But we need also to understand what is the maximum value for those businesses, which of them actually have a higher value by being inside Pfizer and can benefit from the capabilities and our financial strengths, our reach in the market, and which would do better as businesses and create more value for shareholders to be outside the company."

This confirms the probability suggested by Sanford Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson said earlier this week that Pfizer may sell or spin off non-core businesses. Anderson believes they could trim the existing revenue base from $67 billion to a range of $35 billion to $40 billion.

Pfizer closed Thursday at $19.88, gaining $0.58, or 3.01 percent.

Pfizer (PFE) Getting Smaller to Get Back to Core Business?

As everyone who follows the industry knows, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)has spent the last 20 years just getting bigger and bigger. Not that they haven't shed people, buildings, and whole research sites - have they ever - but they've shed those resources after buying them first. And as everyone who follows the industry knows, Pfizer's own labs have, either through bad luck or something more systemic, been rather unproductive during that same period. And now Lipitor moves ever closer to its patent expiration. What to do?

Well, Matthew Herper at Forbes has one analyst's answer, and it might just be what Pfizer's CEO is thinking as well. It's something new, all right: get smaller.

Bernstein Pharmaceuticals analyst Tim Anderson has a note out this morning suggesting that Pfizer could sell, spin off, or otherwise divest divisions accounting for $32 billion of its $67 billion in sales, reinventing itself as a pure pharmaceutical research firm like Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), or AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN).

"We recently met with Pfizer’s new CEO Ian Read, and had we not heard it firsthand, we might not have appreciated just how serious he is about potentially splitting up the company," Anderson writes. He goes on to say that Pfizer may shrink its revenue base by 40%, leaving behind only what Read calls the "innovative core."

The more cynical among you might be saying "Where this innovative core, eh?," but hear the guy out. He's talking about ditching all of Pfizer's non-pharma assets, and cutting back to ... discovering drugs. Combine that with the recent cutbacks in various therapeutic areas, and you have a Pfizer that's actually turning its back on the strategy of the last two decades. Bigger, as it turns out, has not been better.

Pfizer closed Tuesday at $19.76, down $0.05, or 0.25 percent.





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Tax Holiday Push from Oracle (ORCL), (CSCO), (AAPL), (DUK), (PFE) Continues

With the outrageous 35 percent tax imposed upon American companies just from transferring money from foreign accounts to U.S. accounts, Oracle (NADSAQ:ORCL), Cisco (NADSAQ:CSCO), Apple (NADSAQ:AAPL), Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) continue their drive to have a $1 trillion tax holiday.

Oracle President Safra Catz has been a strong proponent of the idea, and was out again to push the deal through.

Alluding to the disastrous policies of Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve, Cats said contrary to the so-called stimulus, "my money has already been printed."

The companies are calling for a one-year "holiday" that would tax the income at just 5 percent. Better yet, this should be a permanent part of doing business, as the money wouldn't go to wasteful and out-of-control spending by Washington, but would be used to actually do some real good by investment, returning money to shareholders and job creation.

Oracle was trading at $31.35, down $0.56, or 1.74 percent, as of 1:16 PM EDT.

Human Genome Sciences' (HGSI) Lupus Drug Approved

Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ:HGSI) had its lupus drug named Benlysta approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the first lupus drug approval in over 50 years.

Dr. Gary Gilkeson, chairman of the Lupus Foundation of America's medical scientific advisory council, said, "Getting this approval will lead to pharmaceutical companies wanting to continue to push and get other drugs approved."

There are approximatley 5 million people around the globe diagnosed with lupus, which can lead to chest pain, fatigue, skin rash and kidney damage, among other issues.

Side effects from the trials of Benlysta include diarrhea, fever, and nausea.

It is thought the drug should generate billions in sales around the world for Human Genome Sciences.

Now that Benlysta has been approved, hopes are companies like Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) will go forward with some of their development programs for the disease.

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK)shares moved up on the news after hours, as they'll distribute it in America, along with Human Genome Sciences.

Human Genome closed Wednesday at $25.68, up $0.01, or 0.04 percent. After hours trading was halted on the company. GlaxoSmithKline traded after hours at $39.50, up $0.92, or 2.38 percent.

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug Meets Goals

As Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) faces the loss of drugs that are patent-protected, it was good news for the company to learn its experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug met the main goals of a late-stage clinical trial.

Reuters said, "The drug, tofacitinib, is one of the most important in Pfizer's pipeline. The company said the safety profile of the drug was consistent with that seen previously in the clinical program, and no new safety signals were seen.

"The trial showed the drug reduced the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis by a statistically significant amount compared with a placebo at six months. The drug significantly improved physical function at three months. It also showed significantly greater disease remission at six months.

"The trial is the second of six late-stage trials. Results of the first were released last November. Damien Conover, an analyst at Morningstar, expects the drug, if approved, to generate peak annual sales of about $2 billion."

Pfizer closed Friday at $19.66, down $0.11, or 0.56 percent.




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Pfizer (PFE) Approved for Xiapex in Europe

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) announced late Monday they have received approval from the European Commission for the Dupuytren's contracture treatment Xiapex.

According to Pfizer, Xiapex is the first injectable treatment to be approved in the European Union for Dupuytren's contracture, and the drug will be made available in some European markets in the latter part of 2011.

Dupuytren's contracture causes the tendons of the hand to thicken and shorten, resulting in the fingers to curving inward. Pfizer has marketing rights to sell the treatment for Dupuytren's contracture in Europe.

For the rest of the world, Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:AUXL) has the marketing rights to sell Xiaflex.

Pfizer closed Monday at $19.24, gaining $0.38, or 2.01 percent. Auxilium closed at $22.47, up $0.06, or 0.27 percent.