Pfizer's history 1970-90

Return to the core business

From its diversified structure of the late 1960s, Pfizer Ltd began to focus more on its core business in the 1970s.

The Colour Works and old Kemball Bishop plants were shut down and Coty was licensed out.

In 1971, 'Pfizer Central Research' was created to discover new products for pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural operations worldwide - working with Pfizer's New York operation more closely than ever before.

In the second half of the decade a medicine called tolamolol was in development and showed potential in the treatment of cardiac dysrhythmia, angina and hypertension. As with many compounds in development, it did not make it to market.

Despite this failure, the development showed that Pfizer Sandwich could discover and develop a potentially valuable medicine. As a result of investment in this operation, by the end of the 1970s, the Sandwich facility made up the largest research operation of any American pharmaceutical company outside of the United States.

Pfizer's investment paid off - in 1979, Pfizer at Sandwich was presented with the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in recognition of the outstanding contribution made to tropical medicine by the medicine Mansil (oxamniquine).

Growth of the Research Division

Feldene (piroxicam), a single-dose anti-rheumatic drug developed in conjunction with Pfizer's R&D facility in Groton, USA, was launched in January 1980.

It is still regarded as one of the most successful product launches in recent times, so much so that manufacturing and sales teams found it hard to keep up with demand. This medicine accounted for nearly half of all the company's pharmaceutical sales by the end of 1982.

The Research division continued to grow, with a third phase of buildings being completed in Sandwich in 1984. By that time the laboratories had synthesised over 60,000 compounds.

By 1988, Sandwich discovered a once-daily oral antifungal Diflucan (fluconazole) was launched, followed by Cadura (doxazosin) for the treatment of hypertension in 1989. Consequently, the marketing department grew and a new sales force, Invicta, was created to market these latest medicines.

It had been a significant period of growth for Sandwich. By the end of the 1980s, the Research Division was three times bigger than it had been at the beginning of the decade.