Pfizer cancels breakup

Article Excerpt

PFIZER INC. $34 (New York symbol PFE; Income Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 6.1 billion; Market cap: $207.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.9; Dividend yield: 3.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pfizer.com) is one of the world’s leading prescription drugmakers. Its top-selling brands include Lyrica (epilepsy), Celebrex (arthritis pain) and Enbrel (plaque psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis). The company also makes overthe- counter medications. Pfizer has decided not to break itself into two companies where one focuses on newer drugs that are protected by patents (55% of its 2015 revenue) and the other focuses on drugs that have lost their patent protection (45%). By remaining as a single company, Pfizer can use the steady cash flows from its older products to keep developing new drugs. The company is also in a strong position to keep buying smaller drugmakers with promising products. For example, it recently agreed to acquire Medivation Inc. (Nasdaq symbol MDVN) for $14 billion. That firm makes Xtandi, a treatment…