Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, may announce new job cuts by the end of next month as it works to curb spending before cheaper copies of its top- selling drug Lipitor flood the market.

The company, based in New York, is expected to fire workers in sales and marketing and will probably announce its plans in January along with its 2009 earnings forecast, said Barbara Ryan, a Deutsche Bank analyst, and Les Funtleyder, a health-care analyst at Miller Tabak & Co.

Pfizer has slashed 14,000 jobs since January 2007, when Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler announced a plan to trim spending by as much as $2 billion by the end of this year. Pfizer now needs to cut even deeper because it doesn’t have enough products in development to offset the more than $12 billion in revenue it will start losing in November 2011, when generic copies of Lipitor, a cholesterol pill, go on sale, the analysts said.

“Pfizer will continue to reduce costs along with head count,” said Ryan, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, in a telephone interview yesterday. “ They are in the throes of trying to retool their organization, and you are going to continue to see that. The pressures are only getting greater on the industry.”

The world’s biggest drugmakers have eliminated or announced plans to cut more than 59,000 jobs since 2005. The companies are bracing for generic copies of brand-name medicines with annual sales of $84 billion, due by 2012. Merck & Co. said today its 2009 profit will be $3.15 to $3.30 a share, excluding costs of cutting 7,200 jobs, disappointing analysts and investors.

Pfizer fell 35 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $16.27 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares sank 28 percent this year.

Pfizer’s Comment

Pfizer continually reviews ways to reduce spending, said Ray Kerins, a company spokesman, who wouldn’t comment on details.

“Given the current challenging macroeconomic environment, as well as the dynamics of our industry and the challenges we face with the loss of exclusivity of key products, head count reductions continue to be a reality in our business today,” Kerins said in a statement today. “Going forward, we will continue to look for ways to operate the company more efficiently.”

Kindler also is working to increase Pfizer’s drug sales in developing countries with a growing middle class, led by China and India, and to speed the development of new products.

Pfizer’s sales and marketing departments remain too large to be efficient, analysts said. Pfizer chopped 20 percent of its sales force in 2006, becoming the first major drugmaker to scale back selling. GlaxoSmithKline Plc, of London, has since reduced 1,000 sales jobs; Merck & Co., of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, eliminated 1,200; and Schering-Plough Corp., of Kenilworth, New Jersey, cut 1,000.

More Cuts

Drugmakers need to trim sales staffs by an additional 25 percent over the next five to seven years, said Jaideep Bajaj, managing director at marketing consulting firm ZS Associates in a telephone interview Nov. 14. Those sales representatives visit doctors, bringing free samples and brand-imprinted office supplies and catered lunches.

The total U.S. pharmaceutical sales force has doubled in the last seven years while the number of doctors has grown just 15 percent, according to a report by ZS Associates, based in Princeton, New Jersey. As a result, some medical offices get visits from more than 20 drug company representatives daily, the report said.

Drugmakers typically begin firing people a year or two before a product loses patent protection, or after a major flop, Bajaj said.

Exubera, Chantix

While Pfizer has been firing workers over the last two years, several of the company’s products have performed worse than expected. Pfizer dropped its inhaled insulin Exubera in October 2007 after doctors and patients shunned it. U.S. sales of quit-smoking pill Chantix fell by 49 percent in the third quarter after regulators warned it could increase the risk of suicide. Pfizer once expected annual sales of each to top $1 billion.

Pfizer has also had several research flops this year. It halted an experimental obesity drug last month that could have produced more than $500 million in annual sales and in September withdrew an application to sell the antibiotic dalbacancin. It also ended development of a drug for advanced skin cancer in April.

“Until they get their cost structure in line with their future revenue, they are going to have to either continue to grow revenue or cut costs,” said Funtleyder, who is based in New York, in a telephone interview. “Looking out past Lipitor, I don’t think the cost structure is in line. It would appear there is more to go there.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 4, 2008 16:33 EST