How generic medications are hurting Pfizer. “For years, even as rivals hedged their bets by developing high-priced specialty medicines and vaccines free from generic competition, Pfizer threw its energy into remedies for common ailments. Among them were Celebrex for pain, Zoloft for depression and Viagra for impotence. Its key weapon was marketing: television ads for the public and an army of sales representatives urging doctors to prescribe Pfizer pills.

Today, insurers and drug benefit managers are becoming adept at overcoming Pfizer’s marketing might. Massachusetts requires 131,000 state employees, retirees and dependents to try two other cholesterol pills before it will pay for Lipitor. Even if patients get Lipitor, they have to pay $40 a month as their share of the cost – compared with just $7 a month for a generic competitor.”