Pfizer will sell off fledgling drugs

NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc. wants to sell to other drug makers 100 experimental medicines for conditions ranging from obesity to high cholesterol.

The world's biggest drug maker is cleaning out its chemical compound closet and cutting 800 researchers, or 8 percent of its science staff, as it focuses on developing medicines to treat cancer, brain disorders, and pain, said Martin MacKay, the company's research chief, at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco yesterday. Some compounds Pfizer wants to sell have been tested on humans, MacKay said.

Pfizer is halting early-stage development of medicines for heart failure, high cholesterol, and obesity to focus on more-profitable diseases, the company said in September. The research cuts add to the elimination of 1,200 scientists last year with the closing of Pfizer's Ann Arbor, Mich., laboratory.

Pfizer was slated to begin laying people off yesterday, a Pfizer spokeswoman said. She wouldn't specify which research fields or what laboratories around the world were be affected.