Pfizer to Close S.F. Biotech Center in Favor of Unit Accused in Patent Suit
Pfizer is pulling out of its much-heralded Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center in San Francisco. The BBC is no longer relevant now that Pfizer has acquired Wyeth’s big biotech assets.
The move is not a surprise. The Pfizer BBC boss, Corey Goodman, famously left Pfizer with $1.7 million in severance after doing less than two years’ work. He signed an agreement never to talk about Pfizer, upon pain of death. Goodman is now heading up a “cleantech” company.
Pfizer’s biotech assets are being concentrated round its Rinat Neuroscience unit. That’s the same unit that is accused of stealing the Alzheimer’s Institute of America’s patented technology. The San Francisco Business Journal was not impressed with the move:
Pfizer’s [sic] must be embarrassed by its lack of direction.
In the meantime, many staff on the rep side are freaking out over the layoffs caused by the merger, which called for 19,000 layoffs.
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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