The international pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, has announced a plan to break its entire structure into three segments, two focused on their Innovative line and one on their Value line. Pfizer employs nearly 3,000 Canadians in six locations across the country, and was ranked one of Canada’s top 100 employers for 2012 in a Globe and Mail survey.
Pfizer splits in three to better tackle the changing market. Photo source: newswire.ca
With products ranging from Celebrex to Chapstick, Pfizer has decided that the split will allow it the flexibility to function as three separate business entities. This is expected to come into effect in 2014, starting with countries that do not require prior union consultation before implementing this scale of change. All three segments expect to continue with marketing, pharmaceutical sales and clinical research, as well as manufacturing, and have taken over a different set of medical concerns.
Restructuring for a more global approach
The first segment is focused on the most forward leaning opportunities, including: Inflammation and Immunology; Neuroscience and Pain; Rare Diseases and Women’s and Men’s Health, while the remaining part of the original Innovative structure will be in the second segment, which includes Vaccines, Oncology and Consumer Healthcare. The third segment will keep the same focus as it did in the past, as Values.
Previously, Pfizer’s Innovative and Values system or organization divided their attention between developing new products, and products with a long-term earning potential that might not necessarily still have patent protection -for example, popular pain reliever brand Advil. This restructuring also marks a more global approach. While in the past there was a focus on emerging markets, many of these have matured into product development partners in their own right. This is also marked by an increasingly global approach to pharmaceutical manufacturing, which of course is helped by a more universal alignment of standards like pharmaceutical quality assurance and quality control.
As graduates of pharmaceutical courses, you’re in a good position to take advantage of this. Separating the business this way is, among many things, a restructuring that means less sharing of staff. Less staff sharing means more workers, which in turn means more jobs for you.
Which of Pfizer’s new business segments would you like to work with the most?