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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BigKNY3 who wrote (6563)	12/29/1998 11:46:00 AM
From: BigKNY3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9523

NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Forbes magazine has named U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. <PFE.N> Company of the Year, saying "the people who brought us Viagra have more blockbusters on the way." "Our Company of the Year decision was fairly easy," Forbes said in a six-page profile of Pfizer -- the New York-based giant which captured much limelight in April 1998 by launching Viagra, the world's first prescription pill for treatment of impotence. Forbes, in its issue dated Jan. 11, 1999, said Viagra was expected to have 1999 sales of $1.4 billion, adding that at least a half dozen other drugs still in Pfizer's research pipeline are likely to emerge as blockbusters over the next five years. They include Zeldox for schizophrenia, Relpax for migraine headaches, Tikosyn for heart rhythm disorders, Alond for diabetes-related disorders, inhalable insulin for diabetes, and Droloxifene for osteoporosis. Forbes said Pfizer was expected to earn $2.6 billion on total revenue of $13.3 billion in 1998, thanks in great part to marketing aggressiveness and savvy. It deploys 5,400 marketers, the largest sales force in the industry, many of them ex-soldiers. "Pfizer has expanded its sales ranks by more than 50 percent in just two years," Forbes said. Forbes said Pfizer Chief Executive William Steere had more than tripled research spending in eight years, to $2.2 billion in 1998, or 18 percent of its pharmaceuticals sales. By contrast, Forbes said rival drug titan Merck & Co. <MRK.N, the current leader in U.S. drug sales, has had a 1998 research and development budget equivalent to only 10 percent of its drug sales.