Pfizer, Warner and the Drug Industry's Growth Crisis

In launching its hostile takeover attempt for Warner-Lambert, its most important partner, in order to get 100% of the revenues of Lipitor, Pfizer underlined its own immense growth challenge, and that of the industry at large. Indeed, the growth problem is so serious that Pfizer is reversing what had seemed a highly successful alternative strategy to M&A--it's late-stage co-promotions. Meanwhile, in signing its own deal with American Home, Warner was sending a similar message: its admission of the difficulty of ever finding, through internal research or alliances, a product important enough to replace the earnings of Lipitor.