Biotech Values

[Biopharm investor]

"I figure Pfizer is going to lose about $14b-16b in products by 2012 which represents close to a third of it's current sales. My thought was could they buy teva ($10b sales) and use a model similar to novartis to put its own products generic but still control the channel somewhat."

Pfizer already has a wholly-owned subsidiary that markets generic versions of its own medicines: Greenstone.

Buying Teva will not stop Pfizer from losing exclusivity on billions of dollars of branded drugs by 2012. There are many other generic firms poised to genericize branded drugs. The innovators would have to take out all the generic firms, and even then, new ones would crop up.

Branded companies need to get back to doing what they used to do best: discover and develop new drugs.