Combining their talents, the cousins housed their product within tasty confections…such as candy lozenges…and toffee-flavored sugar cream cones.

In 1862 PFIZER became the first company to develop tartaric acid…also known as cream of tartare.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, a massive need for painkillers and antiseptics erupted.

Pfizer expanded their business to include the antiseptics…such as iodine and camphor. They also made pain killers such as chloroform and morphine.

Then in 1919 the Pfizer scientists would pioneer a DEEP TANK FERMENTATION PROCESS….the principles which would later be applied to the production of PENICILLIN.

Pfizer would benefit in a big way during World War 2 when the Government appealed to the pharmaceutical companies for their support in producing penicillin.

After World War 2 the prices and usage of Penicillin declined.
Pfizer had to look for new and more-profitable antibiotics to produce.

Pfizer then pivoted from a fine chemical company to a research based pharmaceutical company… giving birth to Pfizer’s “New Drug Discovery” program.

In 1951 Pfizer expanded World-Wide. They began to acquire other companies and also expanded into other arenas such as Animal Health.

While Pfizer’s Pharmaceutical company began to expand and dominate, questions about salacious business practices began to surface.

…AND SO BEGAN THE FRAUD and VIOLATIONS.

☝️
PFIZER
busted by
The
Federal
Trade (FTC)
Commission
in
1958.

In 1961…
the Justice Department filed criminal antitrust charges against
Pfizer,
American Cyanamid, and Bristol-Myers,
accusing each company of charging egregiously high prices and monopolizing the production and distribution of drugs…dating back to 1953!

In 1963…
the FTC ruled that the accused companies in its 1958 complaint did in fact rig antibiotic prices.

The FTC also noted that “unclean hands and bad faith played a major role”in Pfizer being granted the tetracycline patent.

By the 1970s…

PFIZER’s Research & Development(R&D) focused on BLOCKBUSTER DRUGS.

A BLOCKBUSTER is any drug that generates at least $1 billion in revenue a year for the developing company.

Pharmaceutical companies are allowed a “20 year window” of exclusivity after what time the drug is able to be produced and marketed by other companies…usually generic companies.

10 years of that window are usually spent in the development phase.

☝️Having once been in the pharmaceutical industry myself, (thankfully been out for 10 years) the time to market and seize profits is usually dwindled down to 7 years.

Using this business model, the need for pharmaceutical companies to constantly produce blockbuster drugs is an understatement.

BLOCKBUSTER DRUGs ARE THE GOLDEN GOOSE for Pharma companies.

And PFIZER KNEW/KNOWS THIS!!

PFIZER had a string of blockbuster drugs…which resulted in a massive surge in fortunes!!

However, with this surge came a multitude of controversial products, felony offenses,
and MULTIPLE FINES…
including the LARGEST IN CRIMINAL FINE HISTORY!!

Pfizer engaged in fraudulent business practices in getting drug approvals.

Example: FELDENE, an anti-inflammatory medication:

PFIZER submitted a “new-drug” application for Feldene twice to the FDA (3/1978; 5/1980). Both applications were REJECTED due to poor testing protocols.

In September 1981, Pfizer resubmitted.

Then…
while the FDA was still considering the application, Pfizer sponsored a reception at the meeting of the American Rheumatism Association in Boston. Pfizer showed a film promoting Feldene which the FDA said was illegal!!

Did it really matter? Because guess what came next??

In spite of illegal business practices, on April 6, 1982, the FDA approved Feldene for use in the U.S.