Pfizer: Grey today

Pfizer’s problems seem to have arrived several years early. The US drug giant’s sales were widely expected to tread water until 2009 as its new drugs just about replaced falling sales from older ones. After that, the deluge was expected to strike, once the patent protecting cardiovascular drug Lipitor expired. The world’s biggest-selling drug brought in $13bn last year, which is a quarter of Pfizer’s total sales - and this could rapidly fall to zero once exclusivity lapses. But Pfizer’s pain loo...