POV: date=May 2009

Pfizer Incorporated (nyse: PFE) is a major pharmaceutical company, ranking number one in sales in the world. The company is based in New York City, with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut. It produces the number-one selling drug Lipitor (atorvastatin, used to lower blood cholesterol); the neuropathic pain/fibromyalgia drug Lyrica (pregabalin); the oral antifungal medication Diflucan (fluconazole), the long-acting antibiotic Zithromax (azithromycin), the well-known erectile dysfunction drug Viagra (sildenafil citrate), and the anti inflammatory Celebrex (celecoxib) (also known as Celebra in some countries outside USA and Canada, mainly in South America).

Pfizer's shares were made a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on April 8, 2004.

On January 26, 2009, Pfizer agreed to buy pharmaceutical giant Wyeth for US$68 billion, a deal financed with cash, shares and loans.

History

Pfizer is named after German-American cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt (they were originally from Ludwigsburg, Germany) who launched a fine chemicals business, Charles Pfizer and Company, from a building at the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Bartlett StreetKenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 895. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1849. There, they produced an antiparasitic called santonin. This was an immediate success, although it was the production of citric acid that really kick-started Pfizer's growth in the 1880s. Pfizer continued to buy property to expand its lab and factory on the block bounded by Bartlett Street; Harrison Avenue; Gerry Street; and Flushing Avenue. That facility is still utilized for backshop purposes. Pfizer established its original administrative headquarters at 81 Maiden Lane in Manhattan. By 1906, sales totaled nearly $3 million.

World War I caused a shortage of calcium citrate that Pfizer imported from Italy for the manufactue of citric acid, and the company began a search for an alternative supply. Pfizer chemists learned of a fungus that ferments sugar to citric acid and were able to commercialize production of citric acid from this source in 1919. As a result Pfizer developed expertise in fermentation technology. These skills were applied to the mass production of penicillin during World War II, in response to an appeal from the U.S. government. The antibiotic was urgently needed to treat injured Allied soldiers, and it soon became known as "the miracle drug". In fact, most of the penicillin that went ashore with the troops on D-Day was made by Pfizer.

Following the success of penicillin production in the 1940s, penicillin became very inexpensive and Pfizer made very little profit for its efforts. As a result, in the late 1940s Pfizer decided to search for new antibiotics with greater profit potential. The discovery and commercialization of Terramycin (oxytetracycline) by Pfizer in 1950 moved the company on the path of change from a manufacturer of fine chemicals to a research-based pharmaceutical company. To augment its research in fermentation technology, Pfizer began a program to discover drugs through chemical synthesis. Pfizer also established an animal health division in 1959 with an 700-acre farm and research facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.