Patent Loss Results in Job Cuts

Patents can be VERY valuable. In fact, Bloomberg reports Pfizer Weighs Job Cuts as It Faces Drug-Patent Losses.

Pfizer may eliminate about 10,000, including sales representatives, of its 120,000 employees worldwide, according to analysts Tony Butler at Lehman Brothers and Christopher J. Sylvester at Banc of America Securities.

Merck & Co., the No. 2 U.S. drugmaker, cut about 5,100 jobs last year as it lost revenue from the withdrawal of the Vioxx painkiller Sept. 30. Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck also faces declining sales of its Zocor cholesterol treatment.

Patent expiration is the reason for most of these patent losses.

The patent on the antidepressant Zoloft, Pfizer's third- biggest seller at $3.36 billion last year, expires in 2006, and on the blood-pressure treatment Norvasc, the company's No. 2 drug, in 2007.