Wyeth is a research-based, global pharmaceutical company that has established itself in the discovery, development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceuticals (prescription drugs and over-the-counter (OTC) medications), vaccines and biotechnology. Wyeth employs almost 47,426 people in more than 140 countries and has annual sales of $23bn in 2008.
Its key divisions are Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Wyeth Research, Wyeth Consumer Healthcare and Fort Dodge Animal Health.
History
Wyeth was previously known as American Home Products.
Company movements
Pfizer acquires Wyeth
In October 2009, Pfizer completed its acquisition of Wyeth for $68bn (€52bn). For more on this please see Pfizer completes $68bn acquisition of US pharma rival Wyeth on ICIS news.
On 20 July 2009, Wyeth approved the merger agreement with Pfizer.
In January 2009, Pfizer agreed to buy Wyeth for around $68bn (€52bn). Pfizer agreed pay $50.19 per share through a combination of cash, debt and stock. The company said it had borrowed $22.5bn from a consortium of banks to help fund the acquisition.
Please go to ICIS news for more on this story.
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals comprises of prescription products, vaccines and nutritionals. It has global operations consisting of 37 manufacturing facilities in 17 countries and employs more than 44,000 people. This division claims to be a world leader in the field of protein therapeutics.
Areas of interest include small molecules, haematology, immunology, bone and connective tissue biology, soft tissue repair and organ regeneration. Nutritionals produce a line of products including infant formulas, follow-on formulas, growing-up milks and prenatal and adult supplements.
Wyeth Research
This division carries out R&D for each of the sectors, i.e. Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Healthcare and Animal Health. Pharmaceutical research is divided into two basic units, Discovery and Development. Discovery is directed towards both new chemical and biological entities, whereas Development focuses on chemical, biological and pharmaceutical development, drug safety and metabolism, and clinical R&D.
Areas of interest include women's health, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, transplantation and immunology, gastrointestinal, clotting disorders, infectious disease, neuroscience and oncology. Vaccine R&D activities are directed towards diseases of both bacterial and viral origin in areas of respiratory illness, sexually transmitted diseases and gastrointestinal disease.
Consumer Healthcare R&D covers many therapeutic categories and claims to have expertise in the development of dosage forms including tablets, soft gels, topicals, syrups and metered dose inhalers.
Fort Dodge R&D covers new vaccines and remedies that meet the emerging medical needs facing the veterinary community. Wyeth Research also includes Wyeth BioPharma, the organisation within Wyeth responsible for deployment and manufacturing of recombinant protein biopharmaceuticals.
Wyeth Consumer Healthcare
Wyeth Consumer Healthcare operates in over 65 countries and claims to be the third largest over-the-counter (OTC) healthcare products company in the world. Areas of interest include analgesics, cough/cold/allergy and vitamin/nutritional supplements.
Fort Dodge Animal Health
Fort Dodge Animal Health manufactures and distributes prescription and OTC animal health care products for the livestock and companion animal industries in more than 100 countries and has 3,500 employees.
In addition, Wyeth owns Scientific Protein Laboratories (SPL), a worldwide supplier of bulk pharmaceuticals. SPL is a global supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients to the pharmaceutical, food, veterinary and diagnostic industries. More recently, it has begun custom biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing and is based in Wisconsin, US.
Strategic alliances include:
Affymetrix - Research collaboration focused on gene expression chip technology.
ArQule- A chemistry company committed to accelerating drug discovery by using innovative techniques to design and produce the molecules that will become the medicines of the future.
Cambridge Antibody Technology Group - Research collaboration dedicated to antibody development.
Celera Genomics - Research focused on access to human and model organism genomic data.
Celltech - Biotechnology research collaboration that focuses on the discovery, development, and manufacture of novel therapeutic products.
Elan - R&D collaboration on immunotherapeutic approaches to treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease and development and commercialisation of novel therapeutics for the treatment of sleep disorders.
Genzyme Biosurgery - The development of products that enable surgeons to reduce the time and the complications of surgery, to shorten recovery periods and improve patient outcomes. The company focuses on orthopaedic and cardiothoracic surgery and adhesion prevention.
Protein Design Labs - Immune modulation research collaboration for the development of humanised antibodies.
Solvay Pharmaceuticals - Research and development collaboration to co-develop four neuroscience compounds, most notably, bifeprunox , a late-stage compound in Phase 3 development for schizophrenia.
ViroPharma - Research collaboration focused on the discovery, development, and commercialisation of small molecules for the therapy of hepatitis C virus infection.