Pfizer Licensing, Development & Alliances
Worldwide Business Development
"Successful deal-making is about the ability to understand what is important to both sides and then to construct an agreement to meet those needs as fully as possible. Fundamentally, ours is a process grounded in people. The relationships we build, the trust we earn, the skills and capabilities we exhibit - these provide the foundation of a successful transaction, and these are what we emphasize with our staff."
- Ed Harrigan, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Business Development
About Us
At Pfizer, we've sharpened our strategic focus and implemented an aggressive goal to launch two new externally sourced products a year beginning in 2010. To deliver on this goal, we know we have to do things differently than we did in the past. We have to be open to new, faster, better ways of doing business. We must be clear about what we want... and what we don't... and why. We have to be responsive and flexible, yet we must ensure we act with scientific rigor and financial discipline.
Our Strategic Focus
Our new strategic priorities are to:
- Find products that complement our current portfolio by filling gaps,
- Identify products that are synergistic and amplify the value of our existing products, and
- Find new areas to invest in.
We are specifically focused on:
- Growing our core medicines business
- Building first in class biotherapeutics and vaccines capabilities
- Selectively moving into attractive adjacent healthcare businesses - outside our core pharmaceutical business - that utilize our technical, scientific, manufacturing and marketing capabilities; and
- Creating more value for internal products opportunities, including through out-licensing.
Our Organization
Reorganized for New, Faster Ways of Doing Business
The Worldwide Business Development (WWBD) group, which reports into Corporate, brings together nearly all of Pfizer's business development functions for human and animal health. WWBD was created to ensure that all the capabilities and resources necessary to evaluate and secure licensing, alliance and acquisition opportunities, as well as venture investments and investments in innovative, adjacent or synergistic businesses, are in one place with a clear strategy and accountability for results. The reorganization has streamlined communications, resolved internal governance issues, provides for easy-access to senior management and facilitates the speed with which deals are completed.
Out-licensing is a new, exciting area for Pfizer. We believe this represents a significant area to unlock the potential value of products that for a variety of reasons we choose not to advance solely with internal resources. We are identifying assets across Pfizer's 10 therapeutic areas as potential out-licensing candidates. Our decision to pursue out-licensing gives Pfizer a new dimension to collaborate with external partners including the medical community, small biotech companies, and venture investors.
Another significant change is the reorganization of our corporate venture investment group, which uses Pfizer capital, cash, and assets to invest in early-stage, cutting edge, innovative health care companies. These include: therapeutic products, health care devices, and health care information technology and health care services. The goal is two-fold: to receive a return on investment, and to strategically form partnerships with companies that may eventually serve as future R&D and/or health care partners or even acquisition targets for Pfizer.
Areas of Interest
Pfizer has 10 therapeutic areas of strategic interest, and has designated five indications as high priority including treatments for Diabetes, Cancers, Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's Disease and Immunology (Rheumatoid Arthritis). The other areas of therapeutic interest where we are seeking both small and large molecule therapies include:
Beyond compounds, WWBD is also actively pursuing a number of technologies. Specifically, we are seeking to improve the clinical benefit of our product's and to deliver better patient management through better prognostics or diagnostics, improved outcomes research, or assisting in patient compliance and post-therapeutic monitoring.
Examples include the use of MRIs, PET scans and IVUS to measure efficacy and/or PK/PD localization of a drug, or using biomarkers to help with predicting and diagnosing disease in patients.
We are also seeking physician-directed and patient-directed enabling technologies. For doctors, we are seeking simple-to-use office-based diagnostic tools that quickly provide information to aid doctors in providing better diagnosis, treatment and ultimately better management of the patient. Patient-directed tools include items such as portable devices that measure heart function, glucose levels or blood pressure.
Finally, we are seeking to forge partnerships with companies that can help us integrate technologies with therapeutics and informatics.
Research Alliances: Innovation Through Partnerships
Academics, entrepreneurs, and innovators throughout the scientific community work collaboratively with us to enrich the Pfizer portfolio and to expand our capabilities in all elements of biomedical research. Our mission is to guide, and integrate the capabilities and innovation that are resident in the broader research community of private research institutes, universities and biotech ventures as they can both inform and enable strategies related to Pfizer's therapeutic areas and lines.
We cover all areas of Research and Development including deals/technologies that interface with Manufacturing, Veterinary Medicine and Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals.
Areas of Key Activity
- Licensing Candidates & Research Tools
- Material Transfer Agreements
- Research Alliances
- Acquisitions
- Chemistry Devices & Diagnostics
- Alliance Management
- Drug Pfinder
How We Evaluate Opportunities
The Criteria Used to Evaluate External Opportunities are the Same Criteria We Apply to Internal Candidates
Each opportunity is electronically routed to the appropriate therapeutic team for evaluation, which is led by a business development executive and consists of experienced, senior decision-makers from our research, development, commercial and legal groups. If the team decides an opportunity meets Pfizer's initial technical, commercial and strategic criteria, the business development executive will contact the outside company to arrange for the exchange of confidential information, and as warranted, due diligence. We take great pride in the quality and thoroughness of our due diligence, and view this process as a way to further enhance the working relationship between Pfizer and our prospective partners. All projects undergo a rigorous analysis to evaluate their probability of technical, regulatory and commercial success. It's important to note that the criteria used to evaluate external opportunities are the same criteria we apply to internal candidates at a similar stage of development.
Negotiations
We have streamlined our deal negotiation process to be flexible and respond rapidly in today's fast-paced deal-making environment. Our negotiating teams are small, nimble and staffed with decisive executives who are responsible for working with our prospective partners to reach agreement and gain internal management approvals.
Contact Us
In response to feedback, we have developed an easy-to-use web portal that allows interested parties to submit partnering opportunities quickly and directly. The portal can be used to submit any technology, animal health or human health business opportunity at any stage of development.
Simply log onto http://www.pfizer.com/partnering, enter your contact and product information, attach any relevant non-confidential documentation that might help Pfizer's evaluation and click submit. It's that easy.
Through this portal your information is instantly routed to the right business development executive for review. This is the fastest way into Pfizer and guarantees that your project will be reviewed by the right people. You will receive an automated response acknowledging that your submission has been received. It will take us 2-4 weeks for us to respond to your submission.
If you need to contact us for any other reason, please click here.

