Blog #4 Communicating "results"

Pfizer is one of the top research and development based pharmaceutical companies worldwide. It has had great success in all of its branches: Human Health, Veterinary Health, Human Health Consumer Products, (which consisted of very popular products such as Listerine, Neosporin, etc) and Research & Development. Over the years, Pfizer has faced many obstacles with competition, international issues, legal patent issues, etc. Ironically, most of these issues are characteristic of such a competitive and regulated industry. Pfizer's ability so far to achieve such great success in light of these challenges and competition has made them a great leader of the pharmaceutical industry.
With Henry McKinnell as the CEO, one of the greatest results achieved was taking Pfizer from number 14th to number 1 in the global pharmaceutical industry. He was able to accomplish this feat through the acquisition of companies such as Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia. It is not an unknown fact that brand-named pharmaceutical companies face great price and thus revenue complications with the creation of generic forms of their drug. However, through McKinnel's action of acquisition, the now number-one selling drug, Lipitor, was also acquired. Lipitor is one of three drugs that Pfizer now produces that is in the top 25 of best selling drugs. This drug created huge revenues for Pfizer, which helped to offset the revenue losses of their patented-expired drugs. Although Lipitor was the only one mentioned, other drugs were gained during the acquisitions and also helped offset revenue losses.
One way in which Henry Mckinnell may not have been effective in communicating "results" also led to the end of his CEO career. Pfizer's price per share in the stock market was $50 dollars, however, during Mckinnell's leadership this dollar amount decreased to $30 dollars per share. In regards to the amount of outstanding shares, a total loss of $140 billion dollars fell under his leadership. Although explanations that both point fingers at/away from Mckinnell exist, it is still a huge loss that was incurred during his leadership.His position as CEO and leader of the company automatically makes him a responsible person.
Although this last example shows that Mckinnell may not have made the best leadership decisions for Pfizer in his last stages as CEO, he definitely did have some positive growth results for Pfizer during earlier periods of his leadership.