Pfizer May Cut Budget By Reducing Workforce

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, may tell investors this month it will trim annual spending by as much as $2 billion by firing 10% of its workforce and cutting its research budget.

Pfizer may announce the reductions in its $7 billion research budget and a workforce of about 100,000 people at a January 22 analyst meeting, Deutsche Bank analyst, Barbara Ryan, said. The chief executive officer of Pfizer, Jeffrey Kindler, said in October he would seek to go beyond an earlier plan to trim $4 billion in yearly spending by 2008.

Pfizer was counting on replacing sales of its top selling cholesterol drug Lipitor, which goes off patent as early as 2010, with a new therapy called torcetrapib. The company halted development on that product because of safety concerns.