Pfizer Inc. said today it is ending development of two medicines that had been in final human testing in order to shift funding to other experimental drugs with more potential.
The world’s biggest drugmaker, whose research and development is based in Groton and New London, said it decided to halt further testing of compounds to treat fibromyalgia and generalized anxiety disorder after reviewing its existing and experimental primary-care drugs.
“They’re not products that really meet an unmet medical need,” spokeswoman Kristen Neese told The Associated Press. “We’d rather devote our resources to other areas.”
Neither compound had been seen as a likely blockbuster because other drugs to treat those conditions already are on the market.
However, drug companies generally spend hundreds of millions of dollars by the time a drug reaches final human testing, and Pfizer needs every new drug it can get. Its cholesterol treatment Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug with nearly $13 billion in global annual sales – more than a quarter of Pfizer’s total revenues – is expected to lose patent protection in November 2011.
To address that problem, New York-based Pfizer plans to diversify its product and research portfolios by buying rival drugmaker Wyeth, which is a leader in vaccines, consumer health products and biotech drugs, along with traditional pills. Wyeth, of Madison, New Jersey, also has state-of-the-art technology for manufacturing complex biotech drugs, which are produced in living cells.
The cash, debt and stock deal, originally valued at $68 billion, has dropped somewhat in value as the price of Pfizer shares have fallen since the deal was announced on Jan. 16.
At 11 a.m., Pfizer traded at $13.32, up 5 cents, or 0.35 percent. (AP)
