Pfizer's Product Division of Zyrtec: Marketing Plan

There are multiple health concerns worldwide and more and more drugs are needed every day. Many drugs however, are extremely expensive to develop, test, and produce. According to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (2002), it costs up to $802 million to bring a new drug to the market. In 2002, pharmaceutical companies spent $34 billion in research and development (Center-Watch, 2003). In addition to the costs, the overall time from the discovery to approve and market the drug can take up to 15 years.

Economic: Globalization of the pharmaceutical industry is an exciting opportunity to have research and development done at cheaper prices in other countries. However, this could be a double edged sword for companies because it is easy for other countries, such as India, to produce generic versions of the drug in bulk.

They have also attacked patent listings in the Food and Drug Administration “Orange Book” and have alleged monopolization through fraud on the Patent and Trademark Office and sham litigation. Yet other cases have condemned distribution agreements as unlawful exclusive dealing. These government actions have led to substantial private class action litigation against the pharmaceutical industry. The FTC has also challenged numerous mergers and acquisitions in the industry over the last decade. One common feature in all of these cases is the need to define a relevant market. In nonmerger cases, the FTC and private plaintiffsgenerally allege narrow markets, limited to a single drug and its generic equivalent in some cases and to generic drugs excluding the bioequivalent “brand-name” drug in other cases. In its merger challenges, on the other hand, the FTC has alleged markets ranging from those based upon a particular chemical compound, to broader markets based upon various drugs’ manner of interaction or dosage form, to still broader markets of all drugs used to treat a disease or condition. In numerous pharmaceutical merger challenges, the government has included in the market not only currently marketed drugs but also other drugs under development, alleging “innovation markets.”

Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

2. Patent related and Generic Competition: The developed countries like US and Europe have strong patent protection laws which gives a lot of benefits for the pharmaceutical companies. But, the patent

U.S. based companies hold rights to most of the world’s rights on new medicines and holds thousands of new products currently being developed. As of 2012, the industry helps support almost 3.4 million jobs in the U.S. economy. It is also one of the most heavily R&D based industries in the world. In the United States, the environment for pharmaceuticals is much friendlier than other countries around the world in terms of pricing ability and regulations. Both the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries have experienced significant growth in the past year with year-over-year increases of 13.02% and 34.69% respectively. It is an even more striking when looking at the past five years considering both have beat out the S&P 500 with pharmaceuticals increasing an additional 31.44% and the biotechnology sector besting an astonishing 269.3% more return than the

One primary goal of Pfizer is to deliver sustained, excellent product by outperforming Pfizer’s competitors and must differentiate itself adequately from its competitors. Competitive advantage is central to strategic management in that it will produce and sustain superior performance. To be competitive in a business environment, often it requires the company to have a product or service different and better than other organizations competing in the same marketplace. According to Wadman (2007) “Pfizer and the rest of the pharmaceutical industry need to develop more sophisticated drugs, targeted at a smaller number of people more quickly, efficiently and at a lower cost” (p. 1). Once Pfizer’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are assessed and analyzed, managers must decide a set of strategies to reduce or eliminate its weaknesses and capitalize on its strengths and maximize opportunities. An example is Porter’s three generic strategy approaches of differentiation, cost leadership, and focus strategy by using differentiation strategies to differentiate Pfizer from its competitors. Strategies are essential; however, it is useless unless they are effectively implemented levels of the company. Business-level strategies are typically developed and implemented by heads of business units and are first approved by top management. The functional level strategy is the last level that focuses on developing strategies for managing the various departments to

New opportunities always exist in the healthcare industry, and Pfizer can be well-positioned to take advantage of these opportunities. It recently acquired Vicuron Pharmaceuticals which gave it instant access to that company's two major antibiotics. In addition, the company's pipeline includes inhalable insulin—likely to be a popular alternative to the injectable form. The company also continues to actively support its over-the-counter mouthwash—Listerine—classified as a "drug" because of its antiseptic properties (McTigue Pierce, 2005).

Summary: In terms of total sales, Pfizer is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company that creates products that serve approximately 150 million people worldwide and sales of approximately $50 billion in 2009. Formed in 1849 as a chemicals business, it has realigned itself to become the world’s leading research based pharmaceutical company and has produced drugs such as penicillin, Lipitor, Viagra, Detrol, and Geodon and thousands of others throughout its history. Focused now on expanding its international offerings, it looks to China, India, and Russia as high potential markets. In addition to human pharmaceuticals, Pfizer has diversified into the animal pharmaceutical market that has augmented sales and profitability to

The high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for drugs allows the companies to continue researching, developing, and producing new drugs. As new diseases are discovered, new medications must be discovered in order to treat them.

Recently, there has been a debate about the high prescription drug prices in the United States. Accounting for 9.7% of the national health expenditure, $329.2 billion was spent on prescription medications ($931 per person) in 2011 (Linton, 2014). So what exactly is the average American getting with their $931? Well, because there is an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and energy that goes into creating, manufacturing, and distributing a new drug, it’s no wonder the prices are so high. But what other costs are folded into the prices of your prescribed medications? This review looks beyond just the research and development costs needed to take a new drug from idea to shelf by examining several journals and other credible, secondary sources, to shed some light on how much pharmaceutical companies are spending to develop, advertise, and sell their drugs.

The Pfizer case provides an introduction to external analysis. The case highlights the pharmaceutical industry, which has enjoyed extraordinary long-run profitability. The case also demonstrates how broad changes in broad environmental factors (i.e. demographics, technology, culture, etc.) have an impact on industry competition. The case is not especially complex, so it is not overwhelming as a first case.

In summary of the Pfizer case study, the organization realized executives and key employees were spending 20-40% of their time on support work rather than knowledge work. In response, the company started a “magic button” process. When an employee would like to pass off the tasks that are monotonous or lack luster they can press the “magic button”. The tasks are assigned to individuals of an outside organization for completion. The result is an increase of employee productivity.

Therefore, protection of patents is one of the key conditions necessary for further development of the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, non-efficient legislation that does not provide the necessary level of patent protection is one of the factors that hamper expansion of “Big Pharmaceutical” companies to the developing countries8.

This project is the final of three reports I will complete as part of the strategic analysis of Pfizer. This report focuses on strategic implementation and includes the following sections. First, the major concepts related to strategy implementation will be defined. Second, those concepts will be applied to the case of Pfizer in order to analyze its corporate governance, organizational structure and strategic leadership. The analysis of Pfizer will be followed by its evaluation to identify the major problem the company is facing and propose a solution. A short conclusion will close the report.