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With Pfizer Leaving, City Has Nothing But Weedy Acres To Show For Grandiose Development Scheme That Uprooted Homeowners And Razed A Neighborhood I'm often asked if I'd consider writing a novel. My answer is always no, truth is better than fiction ... and often harder to swallow. Consider the bitter pill that Pfizer Inc. slipped New London this week. Barely a decade after constructing a $300 million research and development headquarters in the city, the pharmaceutical giant announced it was shutting down the facility. Just like that, New London will lose 1,400 jobs and become home to a gigantic, vacant...

Stories like this just make me weep for my country. In September local Connecticut news station WTNH reported: Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters have replaced the knot of aging homes at the site of the nation’s most notorious eminent domain project.There are a few signs of life: Feral cats glare at visitors from a miniature jungle of Queen Anne’s lace, thistle and goldenrod. Gulls swoop between the lot’s towering trees and the adjacent sewage treatment plant.But what of the promised building boom that was supposed to come wrapped and ribboned with up to 3,169 new jobs...

The private homes New London, Conn., took through eminent domain from Suzette Kelo and others, are torn down now, but Pfizer has just announced that it closing up shop at the research facility that led to the condemnation. Leading drugmakers Pfizer and Wyeth have merged, and as a result, are trimming some jobs. That includes axing the 1,400 jobs at their sparkling new research & development facility in New London, and moving some across the river to Groton. To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to...

Pfizer (PFE) has laid off 26,300 employees since 2005, and hopes eventually to lay off a total of 30,900 through 2012, according to its 10-Q filing with the SEC. The company had several rounds of layoffs before its acquisition of Wyeth in an attempt to get $6 billion in annual savings out of its business model. The company has said it wants to ax about 19,500 jobs to make the Wyeth merger work. The new company will have about 130,000 workers. The layoffs are ongoing, Pfizer said: In the third quarter of 2009, we reduced our workforce by approximately 1,100...

WASHINGTON – American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and its subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. (hereinafter together "Pfizer") have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products, the Justice Department announced today. Pharmacia & Upjohn Company has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding Bextra with the intent to defraud or mislead. Bextra is an anti-inflammatory drug that Pfizer pulled from the market in...

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3 billion civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions. Announcing the settlement Wednesday, the Justice Department said that it included the largest criminal fine in U.S. history -- $1.2 billion. The agreement also included a criminal forfeiture of $105 million. Authorities called Pfizer a repeat offender, noting it is the fourth such settlement of government charges in the last decade. They said the government will monitor the company's conduct for the next five years to rein in the abuses. To promote the drugs, authorities said Pfizer invited...

According to Democrats.com, Obama has pressured these companies into pulling their ads from FOXnews. Let's boycott these wimps and let them see that losing the mainstream dollar hurts more than losing the radical left dollar: Campbell Soup Chrysler General Motors Kellogg Kraft Foods Lawyers.com Nestle Pfizer Proctor & Gamble Progressive Insurance

The board of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) has agreed to terms of a deal to take over Wyeth for $68 billion, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Monday. Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, would acquire Wyeth for a combination of $26 billion in cash as well as loans and stock, the newspaper said, citing people involved in the negotiations. The report said five banks have agreed to lend Pfizer $22.5 billion to finance the deal, making it the first major merger in months that has drawn the support of Wall Street. The acquisition is expected to be announced...

NEW YORK (AP) — Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, may be seeking to buy rival Wyeth in a deal that could be valued at more than $60 billion, the biggest in recent memory.The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the companies have been in talks for months, although the report said any deal is not near completion and the state of the global markets could undo any plans.Such a deal could cheer investors and analysts who have been pushing Pfizer — struggling with flat revenue, diminishing returns on research and looming generic competition to the world's top-selling drug —...

TRENTON, N.J. -- Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drug company, is laying off up to 800 scientists this year in its latest effort to refocus disappointing research efforts and cut its massive overhead ahead of an anticipated crash in revenue. New York-based Pfizer plans to reduce its global research staff — currently about 10,000 people — by 5 percent to 8 percent this year, company spokeswoman Kristen Neese said Tuesday.--snip--The move comes after the company announced in September that it was narrowing its research focus to six disease areas — Alzheimer’s, cancer, schizophrenia, pain, inflammation and diabetes — and abandoning...

So people at Pfizer are pretty upset about what's going on with their Sr VP HR and her frequent helicopter trips to her cozy cottage in Maryland. And since I dug up some information about Pfizer's infamous party jet back in 2006, I figured I'd use this data to find out how often Mary had been hopping back and forth between her private home and Pfizer's offices on Manhattan Here they are the N numbers for Pfizer's airplanes (see FAA to verify this info.): (more)

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced that it is funding a new adult stem-cell treatment that could treat diabetes-induced retinal damage, a leading cause of blindness. Forbes Magazine says that Pfizer is funding the creation of a San Diego biotech company named EyeCyte to develop stem-cell treatments for eye diseases. The company will base its work upon Scripps Research Institute ophthalmologist Martin Friedlander’s research involving stem-cells from blood and bone marrow. EyeCyte will receive about $3 million from Pfizer, which in return has the right of first refusal regarding the new company’s products. In animal experiments, adult stem-cells have shown...

WASHINGTON - In a sharp reversal, drug and medical device companies are giving more money to Democrats than Republicans this election season, one more sign of the campaign difficulties the GOP could face this November. Over the past six elections, such businesses typically spent twice as much on GOP candidates; in 2002, the ratio got as high as 3-to-1. Democrats now are holding the edge with $7.4 million in campaign contributions compared with $7 million for GOP candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political spending. "Money follows the power," said Massie Ritsch, the center's communications director....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc said Monday it was voluntarily withdrawing advertising for its Lipitor cholesterol drug featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, because its ads led to "misimpressions." ads involving Jarvik had come under scrutiny, including from a House Committee as part of an investigation into celebrity endorsements of prescription medicines. Democratic lawmakers had voiced concern that Jarvik's qualifications were misrepresented in widely seen television commercials touting the blockbuster drug. They said he seemed to be dispensing medical advice even though he is not a practicing physician. On his Web site, Jarvik describes himself...

<p>HONG KONG -(Dow Jones)- Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. (PFE) said Friday it is looking to outsource as much as 30% of its manufacturing, much of it to Asia.</p> <p>Pfizer, based in New York City, now outsources about 15% of its manufacturing capabilities. The company aims to double that figure, as part of cost-cutting measures, it said at an investor presentation in Hong Kong, which was broadcast over the Internet.</p>

On June 19, 1987, Ben & Jerry’s introduced Cherry Garcia, in honor of the man who played lead guitar for the Grateful Dead. The Food and Drug Administration struck back three months later, when it approved the first of a new family of statin drugs that curb cholesterol production in the human liver. A synthetic statin licensed a decade later would become the most lucrative drug in history. At its peak, Lipitor was streaming $14 billion a year into Pfizer’s coffers. Let’s not blame the victim: we don’t choose Cherry Garcia; it chooses us. Lipitor is a lifesaver for 600,000...

The Nigerian government filed a lawsuit Monday against Pfizer Inc., asking for $7 billion in damages over allegations the pharmaceutical company conducted a drug experiment that led to deaths and disabilities among children more than a decade ago, court papers showed. The civil case filed in the capital, Abuja, is separate from a legal challenge launched in the northern state of Kano that seeks $2 billion from Pfizer, although all the cases stem from the same mid-1990s drug study. Pfizer has denied the charges in the Kano case, which are substantively similar to those in the Abuja-based suit. In the...

<p>The wonder drug could be prescribed in time for the nationwide smoking ban from July 1.</p> <p>Champix — developed by Pfizer which makes anti-impotence drug Viagra — blocks cravings, lessens withdrawal symptoms and even reduces the pleasure from ciggies.</p> <p>In trials nearly half of smokers — 44 per cent — kicked the habit after a 12-week course as opposed to 30 per cent using other NHS anti-smoking medication.</p>

For most of my adult life I have entertained the fantasy that one day I would hear liberals and Democrats, in large numbers, saying, “You know, you were right. The only way to climb the economic ladder in America is through education, hard work, and determination. I thought that, if we could just take some of the money that the rich and the middle class have and give it to the poor, everyone would be happy. “I thought that, because of more than two centuries of horrific abuse of African Americans – by Democrats and our KKK allies – we...

AIDS group to sue Pfizer over Viagra ads Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:02 AM ET By Lisa Richwine WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A major U.S. AIDS treatment group plans to file a lawsuit on Monday that accuses drug giant Pfizer Inc. of illegally promoting recreational use of its blockbuster impotence pill Viagra. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) told Reuters it wants Pfizer to be barred from marketing Viagra as a lifestyle or sexual enhancement drug. The nonprofit organization said Pfizer's actions had led to risky behavior by men and an increase in HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. "Pfizer has created...

The latest staggering atrocity from the cloaca of business-and-finance as reported by AP at the end of last week: Pfizer Inc.'s former chief executive, Henry A. McKinnell, who was forced into early retirement in part because of investor anger about his rich retirement benefits, will get a retirement package totaling more than $180 million, a new regulatory filing shows. McKinnell's package, which the company disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, included an estimated $82.3 million in pension benefits, $77.9 million in deferred compensation and cash and stock totaling more than $20.7 million. In other...

Pfizer announced last night that it had discontinued research on its most important experimental drug, a treatment for heart disease. The decision is a stunning development that is likely to seriously damage the company’s prospects through the next decades. Preliminary research found that the drug, torcetrapib, appeared to be linked with deaths and heart problems in the patients who were taking it. For people with heart disease, Pfizer’s decision to stop the trial represents the failure of a drug that many cardiologists had viewed as a potentially major advance in efforts to reduce heart attacks and strokes. Torcetrapib is designed...

On July 27, 2006, the European Union (EU) followed America's lead and gave conditional approve to Pfizer's new drug Sutent (sunitinib, formerly known as SU11248) as a treatment for advanced kidney cancer. The drug is also being used as a treatment for a rare type of cancer known as gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST).But how effective is it?Sutent is one of the latest crop of 'targeted' therapies for various kinds of cancer. It is given as a 50 milligram (mg) pill once per day. Technically speaking, it contains small-molecule inhibitors of the tyrosine kinase portion of the VEGF and PDGF receptors. ...

Brigham Young University has accused pharmaceutical giant Pfizer of cheating the school out of profits and credit for the development of Celebrex, a blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug that has earned the company billions of dollars. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City against Pfizer and several of its predecessor companies after years of unsuccessful negotiations, BYU said. The suit seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages, but notes Celebrex sales have exceeded $20 billion. It also seeks corrections in 75 patents in order to credit Professor Daniel L. Simmons for his discoveries. The suit alleges Simmons...

Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide rates among the youngest and oldest Americans have steadily declined since the late 1980s, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a finding that contradicts popular conceptions that rates were rising. The study suggests that new antidepressant drugs may not raise the risk of suicide after all, the researchers said, but they acknowledge they are mystified by what might be causing the decline, because it is not affecting people aged 25 to 64. "For 40 years adolescent suicide rates rose," said Dr. Robert McKeown, a professor at the University of South Carolina's school...

In the race to replace Henry A. McKinnell Jr., the embattled CEO of drug giant Pfizer, Jeffrey B. Kindler was the dark horse. Named as McKinnell's successor on July 28, he had no pharmaceutical experience prior to joining Pfizer (PFE) four years ago as general counsel. But for months, the drug industry has been racked with legal, regulatory, and public-relations challenges, with Pfizer right in the thick of it. Against that backdrop, the 51-year-old Kindler—an accomplished lawyer and veteran of McDonalds Corp. (MCD) and General Electric (GE)—brings much to the table.

Reversing a strategy that had drawn criticism from doctors, Pfizer says that it will apply for approval to sell a promising new heart treatment as a standalone pill — rather than only in combination with Lipitor, Pfizer’s best-selling cholesterol treatment. The new drug, torcetrapib, is still being tested in clinical trials and is at least 18 months from federal approval. But cardiologists say it has the potential to become a significant new treatment for heart disease. Clinical trials show that torcetrapib substantially raises the levels of so-called good cholesterol, a novel approach to preventing heart attacks and strokes. Wall Street...

Tired of reading about America's retirement woes? Then I have an alternative for you: Watch a TV show about them. Heck, you don't even have to move to your TV -- you can watch it on your computer, from the comfort of your own desk chair. The particular program I'm talking about is an episode of the PBS series Frontline titled "Can You Afford to Retire?" Of course, since you've clicked on this article, you can't be too tired of reading about all of the impending retirement woes out there, so let me sum up the program's main points and...

WASHINGTON - A Pfizer drug shown to help more than one in five smokers quit the habit received federal approval on Thursday, adding another option to the limited pool of effective stop-smoking prescription medicines. Varenicline is only the second nicotine-free smoking cessation drug to gain Food and Drug Administration approval. Pfizer Inc. plans to market the twice-daily tablet as Chantix. "It's a welcome new addition. It's like with cancer or heart disease or high blood pressure or diabetes: the more effective treatments you have, the better off patients are," said Dr. Steven Schroeder, a professor of medicine at the University...

Viagra may help many couples heat up the bedroom, but it has also helped fuel a huge counterfeit market. Pfizer, the maker of the world-famous love drug, is now fighting back with technology. The company began on Dec. 15 to affix electronic identification devices known as RFID tags to all U.S. shipments of Viagra in an effort detect counterfeit pills, 5 million of which were seized by authorities last year. RFID stands for radio frequency identification and is an emerging security and inventory control technology. The move, which Pfizer claims is a first, was expected. The company made its plans...

December 21, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Women are suing the makers of Depo-Provera birth control, saying it has caused them severe bone loss leading to osteoporosis.A $700-million class-action lawsuit has been filed against the drug company Pfizer, an international pharmaceutical conglomerate that also produces the prescription drugs Viagra, Zoloft and Celebrex. Pfizer has come under fire in the past for alleged lethal side effects stemming from the use of the anti-depressant Zoloft, and the company currently faces a number of lawsuits in the U.S. over Celebrex, which is alleged to cause heart attacks in users.The drug Depo-Provera acts as an abortifacient....

NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc. won a crucial court ruling Friday that will allow it to exclusively sell the top-selling drug worldwide, the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, until 2011. Shares of Pfizer, the world's largest drug company, soared more than 11 percent on the news. ADVERTISEMENT District Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. ruled in Delaware federal court that Indian pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.'s generic version of Lipitor infringes on two Pfizer patents. He said the New Delhi-based company failed to prove Pfizer's patents were invalid or unenforceable. The ruling heads off the chance that Ranbaxy will be able to launch...

Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people )'s new HDL elevator, a drug developed to raise "good" cholesterol in the body, "complicates the cholesterol market" said Merrill Lynch analyst David Risinger in a report Friday. Hank McKinnell, the chief executive of Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ), indicated recently that the company's "torcetrapip/Lipitor combination is a $10 billion opportunity" for Pfizer. Risinger said he believes Merck's new HDL elevator, MK-0524A, which Merck discussed at an analyst meeting Thursday, "introduces a new level of commercial risk" for Pfizer's combination LDL/HDL product, "which is the primary pipeline product expected to...

  PharmaceuticalsSaving CelebrexMatthew Herper, 12.13.05, 3:00 PM ET On Aug. 22, the Monday after Merck was slammed with a multimillion-dollar verdict in the first trial related to Vioxx, Pfizer brought a team of academic researchers to meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to discuss a gigantic clinical trial to try to prove that low doses of Celebrex do not pose the same heart attack and stroke risk that Vioxx does. The talks were left unfinished then, but now just such a trial is being announced. The big surprise: Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) has...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Treatment with Viagra (sildenafil) can improve exercise capacity and functional ability in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a serious disease involving high pressure in the blood vessels that enter the lungs, new research suggests. The findings, which appear in The New England Journal of Medicine, are based on a study of 278 patients who were randomly selected to receive Viagra, at one of three doses, or inactive "placebo" three times daily for 12 weeks. The main endpoint was the distance walked in 6 minutes. According to the report, the study did not have enough patients...

The spread of Viagra, the wonder drug that promises to cure erectile dysfunction, is saving endangered species as many men switch from using animal parts to treat the malady, claims a new survey. William von Hippel, a psychologist from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his brother Frank von Hippel, a biologist from the University of Alaska in Anchorage, showed that the Western treatment for the sexual problem seems to be replacing traditional medicines, including potions made from seal penises and reindeer antler velvet. In a study funded by Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra, the von...

...The straightforward generosity of the corporate sector has been well reported. [D]onations had exceeded $200 million. Besides cash, companies have handed out free drugs, suspended finance payments on cars and mortgages and helped emergency personnel with equipment. As interesting, though, has been the application of corporate best practices-- from supply-chain management to logistics-- to a natural disaster. The private-sector planning began before Katrina hit. Home Depot's "war room" had transferred high-demand items -- generators, flashlights, batteries and lumber -- to distribution areas surrounding the strike area. Phone companies readied mobile cell towers and sent in generators and fuel. Insurers flew...

Doncaster, UK (AHN) - The maker of the widely popular male impotence drug "Viagra" is now ready to tackle an issue many are not even aware of. Premature orgasms among women is an issue that is increasingly being talked about in doctors offices across the globe and drug maker Pfizer believes it has the market cornered for a cure. "Whilst anorgasmia and difficulties with orgasm are well-represented in the female sexual dysfunction literature, rapid orgasm - a female problem sharing components with premature ejaculation in men - is notable by its absence," says the patent from Pfizer. The company believes...

The Betrayal of Susette Kelo By William John Hagan The Houston Home Journal, Perry, GA 08/03/2005 The Fifth Amendment states that “No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This means that the government cannot take your property without due process and can only do so in exchange for a payment of “a fair and reasonable amount” for such things such as a public works project. This protects citizens from the forced confiscation of their land. This concept of natural property rights...

Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes HOPE YEN Associated Press WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights. Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas....

WASHINGTON - Gay and transgender workers were more likely than ever to receive domestic-partner health benefits last year, and more companies are adopting nondiscrimination policies to protect them, a leading gay- activist group reported. But gays' workplace gains have slowed since the '90s, according to figures that the group, the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, compiled for its annual "State of the Workplace" report. That's probably because of the rising costs of health benefits. Social conservatives said their resistance to such efforts was a factor. Fortune 500 companies were most likely to protect gay and transgender workers, according to the survey....

The main ingredient in Viagra is reborn as Revatio, a drug used to treat a fatal lung disease. Viagra, the erectile-dysfunction drug used by more than 26 million men worldwide, was reborn Monday as Revatio, a drug to treat pulmonary hypertension, a rare, fatal lung disease caused by constrictions in the blood vessels that supply the lungs. The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug's main ingredient, sildenafil citrate, for the new indication in a different dose, 25 milligrams vs. 20, 50 and 100 milligrams for Viagra, and with a new look. Revatio is white and round; Viagra is a...

PHILADELPHIA - A former salesman for the Philadelphia Eagles Radio Network was awarded $614,000 in a discrimination case after being given a book that advised blacks selling to whites not to wear Afros or African-style clothing. Viacom Inc. and Infinity Broadcasting, the network's parent companies, appealed the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ruling to a state appellate court, a lawyer for plaintiff Shawn Brooks said Tuesday. "It's been a very tough road, standing up for what you believe in," said Brooks, 34, a native of Camden, N.J., who said his family is of mixed race. Supervisors at the radio network, which...

<p>Catch up with the car from "Back to the Future"</p> <p>Bextra belongs to a class of drugs that has been linked to higher risk of cardiovascular disease, but the reason given by both the government and Pfizer for today's withdrawal of Bextra was an additional risk of a potentially serious skin reaction.</p>

WHAT if there was growing evidence that an already-existing drug, taken daily, might dramatically reduce the risk of breast cancer? Shouldn't that be more newsworthy than fund-raising walkathons done in the quixotic pursuit of a simple cure? More noteworthy than the latest lab test which classifies an environmental chemical as a rodent carcinogen? U.S. scientists, led by Harvard's Dr. Peter Goss, this week began recruiting women at high risk of breast cancer to participate in a study of what may well be just such a drug. That "chemical prevention" of cancer has come so far will be a shock to...

NEW YORK -- Eli Lilly & Co. said it fired an employee who wrote a book about his tenure as a Pfizer Inc. sales representative which boasted about how little he worked and how much money he earned. A spokesman for Indianapolis-based Lilly, Philip Belt, said on Monday that Jamie Reidy, author of the recently released "Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman", was terminated because the book advocated actions that were in violation of Lilly's policies. In the book, for example, Reidy admits he exaggerated how often he visited doctors. He also says in the book that he...

A drug that could be one of the most promising new heart treatments in a decade is generating controversy even before it is approved, because its maker, Pfizer, plans to sell it only in combination with the company's best-selling cholesterol treatment, Lipitor. At a cardiology conference in Orlando, Fla., today, researchers sponsored by Pfizer are expected to present positive new results about the drug, which has been shown in preliminary studies to substantially raise levels of what is known as good cholesterol, a novel approach to preventing heart disease. The new drug, called torcetrapib, still must clear many hurdles before...

A fight by homeowners to save their New London, Connecticut, neighborhood from city officials and private developers -- an important property rights case with an unusual twist -- will reach the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. At issue is whether governments can forcibly seize homes and businesses, for private economic development.... ......Legal analysts said they see the case as having major implications nationwide in property rights and redevelopment issues.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 - A federal drug advisory panel unanimously agreed today that the huge-selling painkillers Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx cause worrisome heart problems, but its members voted to recommend that all three nonetheless be available to patients, accompanied by strong warnings of the risks. The panel only narrowly supported the continued marketing of Pfizer's Bextra or the return of Merck's Vioxx, voting 17-13 on Bextra and 17-15 on Vioxx. The panel was much more comfortable supporting the continued marketing of Celebrex, favoring the Pfizer painkiller 31-1. The Food and Drug Administration, which has the final word on the regulation...

Massive send-off rally to support the Fort Trumbull eminent domain victims in their 5-year quest for justice before the U.S. Supreme Court next week. See link for details.