Pfizer Inc

Pfizer Inc. said Monday that it was voluntarily withdrawing advertising for its Lipitor cholesterol drug featuring Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, because its ads led to "misimpressions." The ads involving Jarvik had come under scrutiny, including from a House committee as part of an investigation into celebrity endorsements of prescription medicines.

Pfizer Inc. is shifting its drug research focus to diseases that have high potential for big profits and for treatment improvements in such fields as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. The world's biggest drug maker also is ending new research on conditions including obesity and heart disease, but research on drugs already in late-stage human testing will continue, spokeswoman Liz Power said Tuesday.

For the dog that has everything, including a weight problem, there is now a government-sanctioned diet drug. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first weight-loss drug for canines. The once-a-day liquid medication, Slentrol, by huge drug maker Pfizer Inc. will cost as much as $2 a day. That's more than what many people in the world live on. Should Fido be on an appetite-suppressing drug? "This is an additional tool in a weight-loss program," said S.

Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday that it was considering an over-the-counter form of its Viagra anti-impotence drug as it faces tough competition from Eli Lilly & Co.'s longer-acting Cialis treatment. "As with many of our products, Pfizer has routinely evaluated a number of options [for Viagra], including different formulations, new indications, over-the-counter, etc., and continues to do so," Pfizer said.

Blockbuster or bust. Those are the stark outcomes facing Pfizer Inc.'s Exubera, the first inhalable insulin that will arrive on most pharmacy shelves as early as next month. Pfizer and some industry analysts have said they believe inhaled insulin -- delivered through a small pump about the size of a flashlight and filled with dry powdered insulin packages -- will be quickly adopted by some of the nation's 14.6 million diagnosed diabetes and could account for up to $2 billion a year in sales.

Big Pharma is putting itself on a big diet. Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug company, announced Monday that it's cutting 10,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, and shuttering at least five plants in the U.S. and abroad.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved expanded use of Pfizer Inc.'s blockbuster cholesterol-lowering medicine Lipitor by five new categories, including one to reduce the risk of non-fatal heart attacks and strokes, the company said Wednesday. The expanded label for the world's top-selling prescription drug will also include its approval for use in reducing the risks of certain types of heart surgery, hospitalization for heart failure and chest pain in patients with heart disease.

Pfizer Inc. won a court ruling Tuesday blocking Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. from marketing a generic version of the painkiller Celebrex, the world's top-selling arthritis drug, until 2015. U.S. District Judge John Lifland in Newark, N.J., upheld the validity of three Pfizer patents covering the drug after hearing arguments during a two-week trial in November. "The patents are neither invalid nor unenforceable, and Teva has infringed the patents," Lifland wrote in a 201-page ruling.

Pfizer Inc.'s patent on the hypertension drug Norvasc was invalidated by an appeals court Thursday, opening the way for generic competition to the company's second-biggest seller. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington held invalid the patent on the drug's key ingredient, amlodipine besylate, overturning a January 2006 ruling by District Judge James M. Rosenbaum in Chicago.

Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. plan to dig more deeply into the lucrative market for cholesterol-lowering drugs by developing a pill that combines their drug Zetia with Lipitor, the world's bestselling medicine. Pfizer Inc.'s U.S. patent on Lipitor is expected to expire as soon as 2010, paving the way for other companies to make generic versions of the blockbuster drug. Pfizer is not involved in the deal.