Pfizer and Merck begin 2011 with brand new CEOs and not a whole lot else in common.Merck's new CEO, Ken Frazier, took over the reins as part of a planned succession on January 1. Ian Read took over as CEO of Pfizer much more suddenly, when Jeff Kindler resigned abruptly in December.
Both faced essentially the same challenge as 2011 began: how to deal with unrealistic expectations for growth in 2012.
By now you know the story. Pfizer's Read responded by acknowledging that revenues would not meet expectations, but pledged that earnings would, thanks primarily to some deep cuts in R&D. Frazier, in contrast, said simply that Merck would no longer stand by its guidance, taking the position of defending R&D spending rather than sacrifice new opportunities for relatively short term earnings targets.
Ah, its good to have Merck and Pfizer posing a strategic dichotomy in R&D again!
A dozen years ago, Pfizer (under CEO Hank McKinnell) and Merck (under Ray Gilmartin) waged a similar battle for the hearts and minds of investors during an earlier (and much, much smaller) patent cliff period.
Remember when Pfizer swooped in to buy Warner-Lambert away from American Home Products? Though Pfizer wasn't the loudest advocate of the view, the acquisition put the company in the camp of those who argued that the future of R&D depended on "critical mass"--building the scale to allow huge investments across a range of therapeutic areas and targets to drive growth for the decade ahead. Pfizer followed the Warner-Lambert deal with the acquisition of Pharmacia, and built its position as the biggest of Big Pharma in that era.
Merck, on the other hand, declared its intention to eschew big mergers, with Gilmartin saying any mega-deal would be a "distraction" from the core business of delivering organic growth from internal R&D supplemented by licensing or small, targeted acquisitions. And Merck stood by its guns, become the first Big Pharma to weather a genuine patent cliff (Zocor, primarily) without making a big acquisition (or being bought up itself).
So who was right?
Well, its hard to argue that "critical mass" was such a great idea, what with Pfizer's Read taking the scissors to his company's bloated R&D budget. On the other hand, it isn't like Merck did so well with that organic growth thing either; the company's acquisition of Schering-Plough two years ago, was if nothing else a repudiation of the "distraction" argument.
The fact is that neither company succeeded in delivering a sustainable product flow over the decade that followed the strategic divergence. That is why both are in the pickle they are in today.
Read and Frazier are now charting different paths. It seems unlikely that both are right. But history says both could well be wrong.
image from flickr user mtsofan used under a creative commons license
So who was right?
Well, its hard to argue that "critical mass" was such a great idea, what with Pfizer's Read taking the scissors to his company's bloated R&D budget. On the other hand, it isn't like Merck did so well with that organic growth thing either; the company's acquisition of Schering-Plough two years ago, was if nothing else a repudiation of the "distraction" argument.
The fact is that neither company succeeded in delivering a sustainable product flow over the decade that followed the strategic divergence. That is why both are in the pickle they are in today.
Read and Frazier are now charting different paths. It seems unlikely that both are right. But history says both could well be wrong.
image from flickr user mtsofan used under a creative commons license
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