Pfizer’s Two New Top Pills Selling Slower Than Expected

Pfizer Inc.’s touted two new drugs aren’t selling as fast as the company anticipated, a top executive said today, though the drugmaker expects the pills should still become blockbusters.

Eliquis, a blood thinner, and Xeljanz, a rheumatoid arthritis medicine, were approved late last year and projected to be the backbone of new sales growth at the world’s biggest drugmaker. The pills are competing against well-entrenched products, though, and Pfizer hasn’t been able to gain as much of the market in the first months of sales as it had hoped.