Pfizer’s Obamacare edge

Article Excerpt

The new Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) has forced pharmaceutical firms like Pfizer to cut the price of prescription drugs they sell through the Medicaid program. The new law will also increase the use of cheaper generic competitors. However, Obamacare also extends health coverage to 32 million more Americans, which will push up demand for all drugs. Moreover, the company is partly shielded from the new law because it gets 60% of its revenue from outside the U.S. Meanwhile, Pfizer is doing a good job of developing new drugs to replace treatments that will soon lose their patent protection. PFIZER INC. $32 (New York symbol PFE; Income Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 6.5 billion; Market cap: $208.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.0; Dividend yield: 3.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pfizer.com) is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. Pfizer gets about 45% of its revenue from 10 drugs, each of which generates over $1 billion in annual sales. They include Lipitor…