{"id":2077,"date":"2008-05-28T18:22:48","date_gmt":"2008-05-28T22:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2008-05-28T18:22:48","modified_gmt":"2008-05-28T22:22:48","slug":"bottoms-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bottoms-up","title":{"rendered":"Bottoms up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry I didn’t post earlier in the day, dear readers. I was just building up my courage for the plunge into our annual Top Companies Report, where I profile the top 20 pharma companies and top 10 biopharmas. I just have to tell myself, “Come July 2, it’ll all be done.” It used to be daunting, but the past few years of awful pipeline progress have made it awfully depressing, too.<\/p>\n

This morning, I sat down with Pfizer’s 2007 annual report to run the basic numbers on drug revenues, and realized that two of its drugs that went generic dropped a combined $3.3 billion in revenues, while one of its biggest up-and-coming products just got banned by the FAA (in pilots and air traffic controllers) because of a variety of messed up side effects. The company’s biggest seller (the top-selling drug in history) was flat for the year, now that similar drugs have gone generic. I knew they have a tough slog ahead, but the numbers make it even starker. I thought, “I really should’ve started with another company.”<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the next 7 or 8 companies on my list weren’t in great shape, either. The European firms got a little boost on my chart because of the exchange rate (I always put in a disclaimer that shows results in local currency, because I’m all about value), but I have a feeling I’m going to be hard pressed to find good stuff to write about in their profiles.<\/p>\n

“Come July 2, it’ll all be done.”<\/p>\n

On the positive side, I’m just about done with my review\/ramble on the Kindle<\/a>\"\"! I spent a while on it yesterday, realized it was getting way too involved, and stripped it down to a pretty good size and shape. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to finish it today, because I just got a (print) book in from Amazon: D\u00c3\u00a6monomania<\/a>\"\", by John Crowley. It’s the third book in his \u00c3\u2020gypt<\/em> series, and I c\u00c3\u00a6n’t w\u00c3\u00a6it to re\u00c3\u00a6d it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry I didn’t post earlier in the day, dear readers. I was just building up my courage for the plunge into our annual Top Companies Report, where I profile the top 20 pharma companies and top 10 biopharmas. I just have to tell myself, “Come July 2, it’ll all be done.” It used to be … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Bottoms up”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,12],"tags":[171,172],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-pharmaceuticals","tag-john-crowley","tag-pfizer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-xv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1539,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/utilitarianism","url_meta":{"origin":2077,"position":0},"title":"Utilitarianism","author":"Gil","date":"June 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Every summer, when we get rolling on the annual Top 20 Pharma \/ Top 10 Biopharma report, my trusty associate editor compiles pipeline information for the past year. While I suss out sales figures and try to parse the arcana of accounting, she puts together lists of new drugs that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1543,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-want-a-new-drug","url_meta":{"origin":2077,"position":1},"title":"I want a new drug","author":"Gil","date":"June 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I enjoy writing the big Top 20 Pharma \/ Top 10 Biopharma report each June. Sure, it's not what I imagined I'd be doing when I was a brooding, pretentious idiot in college, but it turns out that there's plenty of fun to be had in researching and writing these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1019,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pfed","url_meta":{"origin":2077,"position":2},"title":"Pf***ed","author":"Gil","date":"July 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry for the lack of posts, readers! I'm really busy on the home-stretch of that Top Companies special issue. Gotta finish the final profile today, so's I can head to the shore tomorrow without worrying about it. I decided to save the biggest one for last: Pfizer. As you may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1054,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/and-they-said-id-never-amount-to-anything","url_meta":{"origin":2077,"position":3},"title":"And they said I’d never amount to anything","author":"Gil","date":"July 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm interviewing a pair of companies this morning for an article in my September issue. Their combined 2005 revenues were $126 billion. One's a major drug company, the other a major healthcare distributor. Margins are a funny thing: the drug company had around $52 billion in sales, with a cost-of-goods\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":586,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/american-job-destruction-act","url_meta":{"origin":2077,"position":4},"title":"American Job Destruction Act","author":"Gil","date":"July 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"When I write my annual Top 20 Pharma Companies & Top 10 Biopharma Companies report (this year's edition is soon to post at the website of my day job), I read a lot of annual reports, along with industry analysis, news coverage, and other neat sources. The annual reports have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":334,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/phase-0","url_meta":{"origin":2077,"position":5},"title":"Phase 0","author":"Gil","date":"August 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Neat article in today's NYTimes about changes in preclinical drug testing. That subject matter may not interest you too much, but it's part of my day job, and I have a vested interest in seeing the pharma\/biopharma industry come up with better methods of drug discovery & development.The best part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}