Pfizer Incorporated
Beginning
• Founded by cousins Charles
Pfizer and Charles Erhart in
1849
• Goal
• Discover and develop new and
better ways to prevent and treat
disease and improve health and
well-being for people around the
world
On the Frontier of Medicine
• 1849-1899
– Charles Pfizer and Company is
founded in a red brick building
in Brooklyn, NY
• 1900-1950
– Pioneering of the mass
production of citric acid from
sugar through mold
fermentation fueled growth
many years
On the Frontier of Medicine
• 1951-1999
– Pfizer passes the billion dollar sales
threshold and pharmaceutical
research continues to strive
• 2000-Present
– Increases its global presence
– Solidifies its place as one of the
most diversified companies in the
global health care industry with
strategic partnerships
Corporate Structure
• Executive Leadership Team
• Brings together top leaders to focus on major
financial, strategic and operational decisions
• Two Separate Research Organizations
• PharmaTherapeutics R&D Group
• Focuses on discovery of small molecules
• BioTherapeutics R&D Group
• Focuses on large-molecule research (includes vaccines)
Corporate Structure
• Nine different health care
businesses within the
company
– Primary Care, Specialty Care,
Oncology, Emerging Markets,
Established Products,
Consumer Healthcare,
Nutrition, Animal Health, and
Capsugel
Business Conduct and Ethics
• These standards help maintain
the Pfizer value of Integrity
• One of the ways that Pfizer’s
shareholders are assured that
their investments are being
properly managed
Pfizer’s Compliance Program
• Commitment to Integrity
– Demand on all company colleagues the highest
ethical standards, and that products and
processes will be of the highest quality
• Commitment to Performance
– Strive for continuous improvement in company
performance
– Measuring this performance carefully and
periodically
– Ensuring that integrity and respect for people are
never compromised
Chief Compliance Officer
• Responsible for overseeing Pfizer’s corporate
compliance program
– Includes the monitoring and self-evaluation
programs
• Makes sure that all standards are held and
correctly interpreted throughout the company
• He is head chair of the Corporate Compliance
Committee and reports directly to the CEO
Corporate Compliance Committee
• Made up of representatives from
each business division
• Members provide oversight of
Pfizer’s corporate compliance
strategy
• Report to Chief Compliance Officer
any significant compliance issues,
risks, or trends
Safety, Performance, and Quality
• As a drug company, ethical conduct is
crucial and could be the difference
between life and death with those
taking the drugs
Produce Experience Disclosure
• All new product information must be
communicated to patients, healthcare
professionals, and regulators
• They are informed of the uses, safety,
contraindictions, and side effects of Pfizer’s
products
• Information must comply with worldwide
requirements of good medical practice and
gov’t regulation
Patient Privacy
• Certain research may involve
the review of patient medical
records
• This information must be
kept strictly confidential, and
any use must conform with
applicable law’s and
regulation or with patient’s
consent
Bribery and Corruption
• Pfizer Corporate Policy
– Prohibits colleagues or anyone acting on Pfizer’s
behalf from providing any payment or benefit to
any person or business in order to improperly
influence a government official or to gain an unfair
business advantage
Unethical Behavior in 1996
• A lot of the reasons for these new higher
ethical standards
• Severe meningitis epidemic broke out in North
Nigeria
• Pfizer showed up to the town of Kano to
conduct a trial on an oral antibiotic called
Trovan
• The “gold standard” treatment at the time in
the western world was ceftriaxone
Unethical Behavior in 1996
• Pfizer dosed 200 children
– Half with each of the two drugs
• 11 children in the study died
– 5 who took Trovan and 6 who took cetriaxone
• Nigerian authorities said that Pfizer did not
have proper consent to use an experimental
drug on their children
• 13 years after the study, Pfizer finally reached
a tentative settlement of $75 million in 2009
with the Kano state government
Resources
• Alazraki, By Melly. "WikiLeaks: Did Pfizer Use Unethical Tactics to Evade a
Clinical Trial Settlement? - DailyFinance." Business News, Stock
Quotes, Investment Advice - DailyFinance. Web. 10 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/ company-news/wikileaks-didpfizer-use-unethical- tactics-to-evade-a-clinical/19755578/>.
• "Corporate Compliance | Pfizer: the World's Largest Research-based
Pharmaceutical Company." Pfizer.com | Pfizer: the World's Largest
Research-based Pharmaceutical Company. Web. 10 Dec. 2010.
<http://pfizer.com/about/corporate_compliance/
corporate_compliance.jsp>.
• Kindler, Jeffrey B. "The Blue Book: Summary of Pfizer Policies on Business
Conduct." Www.pfizer.com. Pfizer Incorporated, 2009. Web. 8 Dec.
2010. <http:// media.pfizer.com/files/investors/corporate/
blue_book_english.pdf>.
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