Pfizer CEO Seems Highly Reactive

Today's front page article in the WSJ highlights challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry and Pfizer in particular. Purchasing groups, such as insurers and drug benefit managers, are creating structures to encourage patients to utilize lower cost generic alternatives before stepping up to the brand name. This "step therapy" is seen as eroding the pricing power of Pfizer and other major pharmaceuticals. Indeed, it does. But does this capitalistic presence warrant Pfizer CEO McKinnell's statement: "our strategy is to survive this period and survival is the right word" ? No, the world's largest pharmaceutical company with $50 billion in sales, $20 billion of cash equivalents and no debt on its balance sheet has alot going for it. But his statement does reveal what's on his mind - survival - as CEO, that is.