INTRODUCTION

Pfizer has been around for over 170 years from 1849 up to the present. It has come a long
way from a "one-stop-shop" to a multinational company. It is a publicly traded multinational
pharmaceutical company based in 42nd Street, Manhattan, New York City. While, the
corporation’s research headquarters is currently located at Groton, Connecticut. It is named after
Charles Pfizer, one of the company's co-founders, along with his business partner, Charles
Erhart. Its operations expanded in over 180 countries with multiple subsidiaries such as Hospira,
Array Biopharma, Parke-Davis, Pfizer Japan, Inc., Pfizer LTD (UK), Pfizer Philippines, Inc., and
more, employing over 96,000 employees worldwide.
It specializes in research, innovation, and developing medications for immunology,
oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology. Its well-known medicinal products include
Advil, Bextra, Celebrex, Diflucan, Lyrica, Robitussin, Viagra, Chapstick, Preparation-H, and
Citric Acid.
Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s current Chief-Executive-Officer, together with 13 members of the
Executive Leadership Team and 11 Board of Directors, supervises, controls, and makes relevant
decision-making regarding principal operations of the business. His team stresses their purpose
of “Breakthroughs that change patients’ lives” since 2019. In other words, every decision they
make and every action they take is done with their patient in mind – and to nurture an
environment where breakthroughs can thrive. They live out this purpose by sourcing the best
science in the world; collaborating with other health care system providers, governments, and
local communities to support and expand access to their reliable and affordable health care
consumer goods; using digital technologies to enhance their drug discovery and development, as
well as, patient outcomes: and leading the conversation to advocate for pro-innovation/pro-
patient policies. Pfizer employees strive to develop a culture of courage, excellence, equity, and
joy in order to serve their patients as best as they could.

BRIEF HISTORY
Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart, two recent German immigrants to the United States,
founded Pfizer in 1849. The two guys, both in their mid-twenties, started a fine chemicals
company in a Brooklyn factory. Pfizer's chemist skills were combined with Erhart's confectioner
training in the company's first product, a palatable anti-parasitic drug that tasted like toffee.
The American Civil War, which erupted shortly after in 1862, had almost as much of an
effect on the fledgling pharmaceutical industry. Drug manufacturers were just as much a part of
the "first industrial war" as arms manufacturers. The Union armies needed a lot of painkillers and
antiseptics, so there was a lot of room to increase demand. Pfizer's sales had doubled since the
beginning of the war in 1868, and their product ranges had greatly expanded.
 Following the battle, Pfizer began to concentrate on industrial chemicals rather than
drugs, manufacturing citric acid for the burgeoning soft drink industry, which fueled the
expansion of products like Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper in the 1880s. For several years, this was
their mainstay, setting the groundwork for their continued expansion. Pfizer also developed its
production when the supply of tartaric acid was interrupted by the civil war and raised tariffs,
allowing it to become the leading chemical supplier in the United States.
Emil Pfizer, the last member of the Pfizer family to be involved in the company's
management, served as president until the 1940s when his father died in 1906, while Erhart died
in 1891. Pfizer's experience in scientific manufacturing methods grew significantly under his
leadership. Their scientists pioneered the production of citric acid from molasses through mold
fermentation in 1919, freeing their citric acid company from European citrus fruit supplies.
In 1936, the company developed a non-fermentation method of manufacturing vitamin C,
which they quickly extended into vitamins B2 and B12, among other things, quickly becoming a
leading vitamin manufacturer – chemicals that were relatively new at the time.
When Pfizer was founded in 1941, it had a strong foundation in fermentation and large-
scale pharmaceutical manufacturing. The US government requested assistance from the
pharmaceutical industry in manufacturing penicillin for the war effort. Pfizer collaborated with
government scientists, academics, and a slew of other industry players to significantly increase
drug development performance.
Antibiotics marked the beginning of Pfizer's modern era. Terramycin, the company's
follow-up to penicillin, was first introduced in 1950 and was also their first patented medication
and the first for which they used sales reps, a soon-to-be powerful force of salesmen that began
with only eight representatives.
In 1951, Pfizer began its first significant foreign expansion, expanding into nine new
countries. It was around this time that they established a facility in Sandwich, England, initially
to finish processing compounds imported from America, but due to tariffs on imported goods,
the company quickly expanded the facility to accommodate the production of medicines from
scratch.
It launched its Agricultural Division in 1952, marking the start of its expansion into
animal health, and in 1953, it purchased Roerig, a dietary supplement specialist that was spun off
into its own division. By the 1960s, Pfizer had reached the "most diversified stage in [its]
history," with interests ranging "from pills to perfume, and petrochemicals to pet food," as the
company put it.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the company continued to develop new drugs, such as the broad-
spectrum antibiotic Vibramycin, and expand its research base, eventually reorganizing its R&D
activities into a Central Research Division in 1971.
In the 1980s, this emphasis on creativity paid off with a series of blockbusters, the first of
which, the COX inhibitor Feldene, arrived in 1980 and quickly became one of the world's best-
selling anti-inflammatories. Others quickly followed, including Glucotrol, a diabetes medication,
and Procardia, a blood pressure medication.
Pfizer has been on a mega-merger spree since the turn of the millennium, acquiring
Warner-Lambert in 2000, Pharmacia and Upjohn in 2002, Wyeth in 2009, and Medivation in
2016.
Despite some losses, Pfizer is still one of the world's largest pharmaceutical firms. The
organization's sheer scale is mind-boggling, with well over 100,000 employees.
And, with the company being one of the first in the world to have a COVID-19 vaccine
approved – thanks to a partnership with BioNTech – it appears that we're just scratching the
surface of where the company could go in the future.
Because of its sheer diversity and economies of scale, Pfizer is expected to continue to
shape the pharmaceutical industry well into the twenty-first century. Pfizer will undoubtedly
celebrate its 200th anniversary in the same strong place as it spent the previous 160 years, with
fingers in every pie ranging from small molecules to biologics in every therapeutic field, to stem
cells and consumer goods.

References
Pharmaphorum. (2020, Dec. 2). A History of Pfizer. Retrieved from https://pharmaphorum.com/
sales-marketing/a_history_of_pfizer/#:~:text=Pfizer%20was%20founded%20in%201849,
Charles%20Pfizer%20and%20Charles%20Erhart.&text=The%20company's%20first
%20product%2C%20a,Erhart's%20training%20as%20a%20confectioner.