Pfizer: Uniquely Changing Discovery

Good health is vital to all of us, and finding sustainable solutions to the health care challenges of our changing world cannot wait. That’s why Pfizer is committed to being a global leader in health care. At Pfizer, we help change millions of lives by discovering, developing, and delivering innovative treatments that society values to prevent and cure diseases.

To achieve these goals, Pfizer is committed to fostering innovation across all facets of the research and development continuum. Innovation at Pfizer begins with the discovery of novel disease targets, and includes how discoveries are translated into new medicines. These Pfizer innovations improve current treatments or provide medical solutions for diseases where treatments are not available. Through technology and business model innovation, Pfizer strives to improve productivity, accelerate the delivery of medicines to patients, increase pipeline transparency and clinical trial practices, improve drug safety monitoring, and work with stakeholders in new ways to ensure that effective new medicines reach patients.

As advances in medical care help more and more people live longer lives, the need for new medicines to keep people healthy continues to grow.

Pfizer researchers and scientists are working to discover and develop new ways to treat and prevent life-threatening and debilitating illnesses—such as Alzheimer’s disease and cancer—as well as to improve wellness and quality of life across a range of therapeutic areas.

How Pfizer is uniquely changing the way new medicines are discovered and developed

Establishing an Innovation Engine for Discovery

In October 2007, Pfizer launched the Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center (BBC) to propel Pfizer to the forefront of bioinnovation and into the top tier of biotherapeutics companies. The BBC represents an innovative model for Pfizer and the pharmaceutical industry, as it brings the best features of science, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and pharmaceutical scale together in one place for the first time.

The BBC is a federation of dynamic, entrepreneurial, biotech-like units each focusing on the innovation of key biotherapeutic technology platforms—antibodies, peptides, nucleic acids, stem cells—to deliver best-in-class and first-in-class medicines through clinical proof of concept.

These biotech-like units are located in the major academic and biotechnology hubs of the world. They are encouraged to preserve their identity and culture, to develop their own cutting-edge technology while bringing forward new drugs, and to remain largely independent in their decision-making. Each unit in the BBC federation has no more than 150 scientists and is run by a Chief Scientific Officer. The units interact with each other to access talent and technologies and have the added benefit of working collaboratively with the resources and expertise of Pfizer’s Global Research and Development organization.

With the broad therapeutic area knowledge and experience of Pfizer’s global business units behind it, the BBC has site-based business, legal, and financial resources to ensure that its scientists and collaborators have close local support to deliver immediate and innovative business solutions. The BBC has emerged as an engine of discovery with tempo. This same innovative thinking is being applied to the complexity of pharmaceutical discovery and development to position Pfizer at the forefront of emerging technologies. In fact, Pfizer restructured both its research and commercial organizations into business units last year to help spur new ideas, making the enterprise more efficient and more entrepreneurial. Smaller operating units will enhance innovation and accountability, while benefiting from the scale and resources of the world’s largest pharmaceutical company.

Forming Partnerships with the Best External Science

In addition to the significant technical innovation accomplished internally, Pfizer aggressively pursues bioinnovation through collaborations with world-class academic, public-sector, and private-sector institutions in areas of emerging science. By acquiring high-value targets, cutting-edge technologies, and the latest scientific knowledge, the company can accelerate research and develop medicines across a wide range of therapeutic areas to focus on satisfying unmet medical needs. The BBC is supported by senior business development colleagues, most with academic and pharmaceutical credentials, and well connected to Pfizer’s broader Worldwide Strategy and Business Development team.

Tackling a Major Industry Challenge to Lower Clinical Attrition

Generation of novel, validated, targets is so fundamental to Pfizer’s ability to succeed that it has established a stand-alone research unit called the Target Generation Unit (TGU). The TGU combines human genetics and systems biology approaches to identify and validate novel targets that are proven relevant in human disease.

Led by Dr. David Cox, a world-renowned geneticist, the TGU team applies knowledge of human genetics and systems biology to improve preclinical validation and inform clinical trial design. This approach serves to reduce clinical attrition and to deliver safer, more effective medicines to patients—doing so more quickly and at lower cost.

The TGU combines resources across Pfizer with a rich set of collaborators from biotech and academia, to identify new biochemical pathways that provide opportunities for therapeutic intervention. A series of genetic research projects are underway in which gene sequencing technologies are being used to identify rare genetic changes that protect individuals from disease. Through these approaches, the TGU then develops therapeutic interventions, which are tested in human cell-based assays and through systems biology models. The use of human genetics to identify relevant disease targets and the avoidance of animal models that are poorly predictive of human disease is the cornerstone of Pfizer’s strategy to generate novel, high-quality targets. Establishment of the TGU is a bold move that Pfizer believes will provide valuable target substrate for its drug-discovery programs.

Investing in Emerging Areas of Science: Nucleic Acids and Stem Cell Research

Last year, Pfizer took a meaningful position in nucleic acids and stem cell research—two new, highly promising, and transformative areas of science capable of delivering novel clinical therapies across all disease areas.

Because nucleic acids have the potential to expand therapeutic intervention and treat diseases that are not successfully addressed using today’s traditional approaches, Pfizer has put together a team of experts who are securing the company’s foothold in this area. Pfizer also entered the field of regenerative medicine; and in 2008 launched the Pfizer Regenerative Medicine Unit, positioning Pfizer as the first pharmaceutical company to have a dedicated effort in stem cell–based therapeutics. This unit extends Pfizer’s commitment to stem cell research, takes advantage of the scientific advances in understanding stem cells, and explores the opportunities they provide to supporting better therapies. Pfizer believes this area of research holds considerable promise for biomedical science and for the treatment of many debilitating conditions.