Lyrica Patent Loss Portends 2019 Pfizer Earnings Drop, an Industrial Info Market Brief

During Pfizer's recent fourth-quarter 2018 earnings call, the company's new chief executive officer, Anthony Bourla, acknowledged 2019 will be "a challenging year." This is in no small part due to the drugmaker's patent loss of exclusivity (LOE) for the $5 billion blockbuster epilepsy drug Lyrica. Some estimates call for the drug's annual sales to drop to less than a $1 billion by 2024. Regardless of the patent loss, the drug giant has more than $1.5 billion in active capital expansion and upgrade projects across the globe.