Pfizer plots 10-fold boost in cancer sales

We all know there's a pharma gold rush into cancer meds. They're the fastest growing segment of the market by far, and every major drugmaker wants a piece of it. And now Pfizer is saying that it's planning a big-time land grab, aiming to grow its oncology sales tenfold by 2018--and become the third-largest purveyor of cancer meds, up from seventh now, Bloomberg reports.

Let's do the math: Pfizer posted $2.5 billion in cancer sales in 2008. Over the next ten years, it wants to boost that number to ten times that amount, or some $25 billion. That's more than the GDP of Panama.

How to achieve such massive growth? Partly via R&D, of course; Bloomberg notes that a quarter of Pfizer's 100 meds in human testing are cancer drugs, and in buying Wyeth it will get six more. And then there's organic growth; oncology drug sales grew by 11.3 percent from 2007 to 2008. If that continues, and Pfizer captures a fair share of it, then that would account for a little less than half of its growth goal.

While Andreas Penk, president of Pfizer's European cancer business, was throwing around big numbers in Berlin, CEO Jeff Kindler (photo [1]) stopped by BusinessWeek for a quick interview. He didn't mention the cancer goal, but he did say the company wants 12 years of exclusivity on biologics--including cutting-edge cancer treatments. And he promised that Pfizer has learned its lesson about megamergers throwing off R&D. We'll have to wait and see how those efforts pan out. 

- read the Bloomberg story [2]
- check out the interview [3] at BusinessWeek

ALSO: Pfizer released an open letter to the people of the Phillipines, expressing concern over accusations that it tried to bribe the government to forego retail price cuts. Report [4]

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