What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
By PETER ROST, MD Pfizer announced a few days ago that they pulled the plug on torcetrapib, because the drug had sharply increased the death rate in a 15,000 patient trial. This was the drug that was going to save Pfizer when Lipitor, Pfizer’s $14 billion blockbuster anti-cholesterol medicine, goes off patent in 2010. To make matters worse, two days before canceling all further development, Pfizer’s CEO Jeff Kindler stated at a large meeting with 250 analysts that torcetrapib was “one of the most important developments in our generation.” During the past week newspapers and analysts and scientists have had one question on their mind: How could something like that happen to the preeminent drug company in the world? How could the CEO of this powerful drug company be caught hyping a drug that was withdrawn only days later? As a former Vice President of Pfizer, and based on my many years working in the drug industry, I may have some clues to what really happened. First, let’s face it. A dr
