Pharmacia & Upjohn (1995-2000)

Announced: August 1995
Finalized: October 1995.

In the 1995 merger with Pharmacia, John Zabriskie from Upjohn was named CEO of the combined company, called Pharmacia & Upjohn (PNU).

Pharmacia had major centers in Sweden and in Italy. It had strong European sales whereas Upjohn has strong U.S. sales. Zabriskie’s plan was to have three major operational centers, Kalamazoo in the US, Stockholm/Uppsala in Sweden and Milan in Italy. These would compete against each other. The corporate headquarters would be in London.

PNU purchased an expensive piece of land on the bank of the River Thames west of London, and built a headquarters there. It cost $1.2 billion to set up this new corporation. Alas, the competition model was not successful. There was too much duplication, and it did not lead to any lucrative drug breakthroughs or efficiencies.

In 1997, Fred Hassan, a Pakistani-born businessman, was brought on board as CEO of Pharmacia & Upjohn, replacing Zabriskie. Hassan had made a career as a turnaround specialist and PNU needed that. Hassan made many swift changes, including moving the headquarters from the UK to New Jersey. 

There were many thousands of layoffs as Hassan cut the corporation to the bone. Another $1.2 billion was spent for this restructuring. PNU acquired the cancer company Sugen in 1999 for $650 million, which subsequently yielded Sutent, a billion-dollar product.

Pharmacia (2000-2003)

Annouced: December 1999
Finalized: April 2000

In April 2000, PNU completed a merger with Monsanto and was renamed Pharmacia. The only goal of this merger for PNU was to get the Searle pharmaceutical operation, which had the lucrative COX-2 pipeline.

Celebrex became the first drug in this pipeline and a huge seller it was. Celebrex was a non-steroidal that had anti-inflammatory properties for arthritis. The next drug in that COX-2 pipeline was Bextra.

Pfizer (2003-present)

Announced: July 2002
Finalized: April 2003

Hassan had succeeded in making Pharmacia a very attractive take-over target and Pfizer announced the purchase of it in July 2002. What attracted Pfizer was the COX-2 pipeline drugs Celebrex and Bextra.

To avoid paying taxes, this deal was structured so Pharmacia bought Pfizer and then renamed itself Pfizer. Part of the deal was the agricultural and chemical manufacturing parts in the Monsanto part of Pharmacia would be spun off in a separate company. That spin-off happened in 2003.

Thousands of layoffs at Pharmacia sites followed this acquisition. I calculated that between 2000 and 2010, Pfizer laid off over 100,000 employees, not all from Upjohn. The large research operations at Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor in Michigan were closed. Animal Health operations were spun off as Zoetis. All Consumer Healthcare products were sold to Johnson & Johnson. Most off-patent solid oral dose legacy brands were spun-off to Mylan.

Bextra had to be withdrawn from the U.S. market and Pfizer paid a $2.5 BILLION fine for deceptive marketing of it. Pfizer attempted to move some manufacturing from the U.S. and Europe to China and India but that was an expensive fiasco. Two Pfizer CEO's were fired because of their unacceptable behaviour. Pfizer leadership's dysfunctionality was written about in a Fortune magazine article. 

Here are some other dates:

-  Upjohn Division announced by Pfizer July 2018
-  Upjohn Division finalized January 2019
-  Pfizer Upjohn Division merger with Mylan announced July 2019
-  Pfizer Upjohn Division merger with Mylan finalized November 2020

What's Left of Upjohn in Pfizer

As of late 2024, very little of Upjohn is left in Pfizer. The Puurs manufacturing site remains and is going strong. Around 2007, Pfizer made the decision to close the entire Portage manufacturing site but by happy timing, the leader of the new corporate operation "Established Products" insisted that the Portage site remain open to keep making steroids.

The Upjohn research operations everywhere in the world are completely gone. Everything Upjohn in Kalamazoo County except the main manufacturing site was spun off, sold or demolished.

In 2015, Pfizer invested $400 million in a new sterile manufacturing building at the Portage manufacturing site but by the time it was finished in 2024 they had no use for it. To save face in NYC HQ, it is labeled “For future expansion”.