Dear Ian,
Today is St. Valentine’s Day. A bit of a rubbish St. Valentine’s as we are not in the “mood” for love but anyway, let’s get straight to business.
I was wondering how your life is and if you will have a nice St. Valentine’s with your better half. I was wondering if you would go to a nice restaurant and will buy some flowers. Or perhaps, you will stay at home, with a lovely candlelit dinner for two.
How wonderful life is when you are not between a rock and a hard place.
Whilst many of us will spend today wondering where we’ll work and how we’re going to pay off mortgages, move our children from their schools and selling our devaluated homes, you will most certainly be in NY, forgetting that your actions have put lots of people under incredible strain.
The Pharma business is definitely changing. When lawyers and accountants are at the top of the business, science (and scientists) suffers. I don’t think I need to remind you that our business is “we make medicines”. But apparently, Pfizer would like to sell medicines made by others, without taking risks. When Pfizer is making billions but still decides to fire its R&D workforce, something tells me that this is not the right thing to do. Perhaps accountants and lawyers will make medicines? No, it doesn’t sound right.
I don’t think your little Pfizer-Sandwich people are the only ones baffled by your decisions. Instead of working for sustained growth you seem to steer your boat to gain maximum profit in the short term. I am not one to pretend to understand what you do, but somehow, something tells me that this is the wrong strategy for a business that plays (or used to play) the long game.
It is heartbreaking that not only all the buildings and labs will be abandoned in 18 moths or less, thousands of very qualified people are currently closing projects, abandoning experiments, leaving things that could have come up with something interesting and good unfinished. Seriously, you added all the columns and realised this was more cost effective after years and years of investment. Seriously?
I will not pretend that I know how Wall Street works but who in their right mind would invest long term in a business with no future? If you keep selling the key assets and knowledge, what will remain in 10, 15, 20 years or so? You know that this is not going to last and you will come up with a new trick in your magic hat to excite Wall Street without doing anything substantial. Smoke screens, booby traps and decoy detonators are what you and your senior management seem to be experts at.
Enough for today, I have better things to do and a lovely and supportive partner as well.
Happy St. Valentine’s Day everyone!
Letter to Read.
I feel very sorry for the staff and families who will be affected by the closure of Pfizer. I hope that everybody finds something different and better. Stay out of the pharma industry - there won't be much better news at other companies long-term. Also, while people will quite naturally feel sorry for themselves, let's not forget the businesses and families in the surrounding area. They are going to come off even worse when their businesses dry up and the arse falls out of the housing market in south-east Kent. I wonder if your time might not be better spent searching for a job? Or if not then maybe help others by posting links to agencies and websites advertising jobs? Pfizer don't owe any of us a living and only the slightly naive would rely on their job being secure for life. There always should be consideration for a Plan B and a 'what if'. This news was a shock but not a surprise. There have been warning signs and rumours. It was quite obvious that the bloated Pfizer machine could not continue in the way it was going.
ReplyDeleteYou have the world's sympathy currently, but maybe if you want to keep it then you could consider making your daily letter a little more constructive than simply having a go at a hideously bloated and top-heavy business, where the inevitable was bound to happen one day.