The Governance Of Pfizer

Corporate management is complex as challenges are often diverse. The ability of the managers to maintain efficient performance and the ability to prove resilient to the management wrangles are considerable factors that make managers proficient (Yukl & Lepsinger, 2004). More frequently, controlling the top management officials where personal interests and professionalism are constant dilemmas often proves challenging (Yukl & Lepsinger, 2004). The case of Pfizer 's Palace Coup is among the cases that present significant management dilemmas. Pfizer is a global pharmaceutical firm.

The pharmaceuticals industry is one of the most profitable business sectors. The implications of this business can be observed on individual, corporate, and national level. The actions that companies make determine significant effects on different categories of stakeholders.

Healthcare today is often dictated by insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies. Often in the news, we hear a lot of talk about “Big Pharma.” and their control over the health care industry as a whole. To some degree, pharmaceutical companies even hold power over the insurance companies. Additionally, Big Pharma has a lot of control over the hospitals, the doctors, and the media. Pfizer is a well known pharmaceutical company and it is known on the global market as on of the “world’s premier innovated biopharmaceutical companies” (Pfizer,2002). It is also well known for its top ranking profit margins. According to the website homepage, pfizer.com, Pfizer’s mission is

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

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is continuously growing and profiting. How these industries profit and grow in the current status of the American business is caused by various factors such as demand of the citizens, change in marketing and competition. To understand how the factors added to the increase in profit and growth of the pharmaceutical industries, we need to know how it was founded and industrialized.

Merck is among the largest pharmaceutical organization found in the United States of America. It is ranked as one of the successful medical companies in the entire world. It plays a very significant role within the entire medical industry. It was founded in the year 1891 as a subset of the parent company located in Germany. During the year 1945, the company was incorporated as a full American company through the tutelage of the United States government. Its market coverage is broad in the area of offering pharmaceutical services. It is attributed to the high investment on research and development along with competent human resource on board.

Pfizer Incorporated (PFE) was established in 1849 in Brooklyn, New York. Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt, two German-American cousins, founded a chemicals business and produced an anti-parasitic- Santorin, which was a great success.Pfizer's business began to grow with production of citric acid in 1880s. Total sales of Pfizer had reached almost $3 million by 1910. By 1950s, Pfizer had set up business in countries like Belgium, Canada, Iran, Panama, Turkey, and United Kingdom.

Developing and emerging markets present several challenges, which need to be overcome by multinational Pharma firms. Pharmaceutical managers consider market access to be their most important challenge.

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.

The dependency of profits to promote sales to please shareholders and research and development of new products seem to be the mindset of the pharmaceutical industry. It is without question that the pharmaceutical companies only care about making a profit more than they do to help the people of the United States. Pharmaceutical companies and doctors that represent them are only acting in their own best interest; patients are the ones who are suffering the most. With that, new information being produced it is not always being fully disclosed in the fine print, or the other option to the drugs they take, this just only helps fuel business’s.

Pfizer’s ethical responsibility is to control the distribution of their cold and allergy medications, as meth cannot be made without the ingredients found in these types of medicines. Controlling the purchase of these over the counter medications may decrease the number of small toxic labs and the manufacturing of meth in the State of Arkansas.

Poor regulation, Conflict of interest and unfair decisions on account of Big Pharmaceuticals in Canada

Drug companies that test experimental drugs in foreign countries are acting unethically. They are acting unethically, such that they are not disclosing results from the tests. As per the national Pharmaceutical Control Bureau’s Web site, there are specific guidelines with which the experimenters would have to adhere to when dealing with drug reactions (Health-Asia, 2007, February 2). Following a practice like this is imperative because patient safety is number one. Additionally, recording results and sharing them is common decency for families that are affiliated with the person being tested. If something bad happened, such as death, families, if present and involved, should be notified. Another reason as to why I feel recording results is important is the fact that it allows for the experimenters/doctors to have visual data of what drugs work and what drugs do not work. This would enable them to potentially improve on any faults that are present in the drugs and prevent future casualties.

This time Pfizer seemed focused on diversifying the product pipeline by acquiring Wyeth. In fact, in its 2009 financial report, Pfizer reported that one of its key strategies was to have a “diversified product portfolio in which it is expected that no drug will account for more than 10% of our revenues in 2012.” To assess whether Pfizer was able to achieve its goal of diversification the first step is to examine the product pipeline and value chain of Wyeth.

It wasn’t too long ago that the main security issue facing pharmaceutical companies was protecting their intellectual property from competitors who might be so unscrupulous as to try and steal information about new products. As computers became more entrenched in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, a clinical trial means having to store patient information, security became an issue as the pharmaceutical companies began storing patient data on their servers – they must comply with HIPAA, so patient privacy became an important cyber security issue. Always a priority, cyber security is at the top of the list for pharmaceutical organizations as threats from terrorist groups on pharmaceutical firms is real and increasing.