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Pfizer Seeks 10-fold Rise in Global Cancer-Drug Sales by 2018

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By Shannon Pettypiece and Naomi Kresge

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. plans for its worldwide sales of medicines for treating cancer to increase 10-fold by 2018, said Andreas Penk, regional president of the company’s cancer business in Europe.

Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, had about $2.5 billion in cancer-medicine sales in 2008, according to the company. Pfizer plans to become the third-largest maker of cancer treatments, up from about seventh now, Penk said during a presentation in Berlin, without naming the other leaders. The sales goal is an internal projection and isn’t meant to serve as financial guidance, said Joan Campion, a spokeswoman for New York-based Pfizer.

“At the moment we’re about in seventh place in oncology,” said Penk, who is also head of Pfizer’s German operations. “We want to be in the top three in 2018. During this time we want to increase our sales by about 10 times.”

About a quarter of Pfizer’s 100 medicines in human testing are for cancer, according to the company’s listing on a Web site of its experimental products as of March 31. Pfizer plans to acquire rival drugmaker Wyeth for about $64 billion by the end of the year, gaining six cancer medicines in testing.

Cancer treatments were the top-selling category of medicine in 2008, generating $48.2 billion in sales last year, an 11.3 percent increase, according to data from IMS Health Inc. in Norwalk, Connecticut.

About half of Pfizer’s growth in cancer sales may come from Europe, Penk said. Pfizer pledged in 2007 to spend 20 percent of its more than $7 billion annual research budget on cancer.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiOzgR9k0JI0