Pfizer is a global pharmaceutical and consumer products company, which discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets medicines for humans and animals. The company consists of three SBU's (Strategic Business Units):
• •Health Care
• •Animal Health
• •Consumer Health Care
The company produces the impotence treatment Viagra, cholesterol lowering Lipitor and, for high blood pressure and angina, Norvasc. The animal division produces treatment both for livestock and pets. The company's consumer division produces the consumer drugs Listerine, Certs, Dentyne. Pfizer engages in international business both through their subsidiaries and distributors. The company's headquarters are located in New York, US.
Pfizer is a leader in the research-based healthcare industry, and its strengths lie in its innovative R&D and strong marketing capabilities. When Pfizer's operations began in 1849, its focus was on the research and development of innovative pharmaceutical compounds, and it is this activity, which remains core to the company's interests.
The company traces its origins back to 1849 when cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart founded Charles Pfizer and Company in Brooklyn, New York. In 1928, Dr. Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin started the expansion of modern medicine and offered hope in the battle against infection. But penicillin couldn't be manufactured in large quantities to help people until Pfizer pioneered its mass production.
"The success of penicillin lead to the company's initial public offering in June 1942. In 1950, Terramycin (oxytetracycline), a broad-spectrum antibiotic represented the result of the company's first discovery program and became the first pharmaceutical sold in the US under the Pfizer label."
A new pharmaceutical company had been born. The second half of the 20th century has been an era of unique advances in medical discovery, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Pfizer continued to develop and market new