Faced with its meager pipeline, the drugmaker is now more actively targeting investments that can bolster its portfolio. Toward that end, Pfizer recently hired Barbara Dalton, a venture capital veteran from SR One, and her unit, which she’ll join next month, is being given enough capital to make six to eight investments a year, the Associated Press reports.

An existing unit called Pfizer Strategic Investments Group has had a narrower focus, funding diagnostics, software and technology providers such as Genomic Health, a developer of a cancer diagnostics; molecular-imaging company Avid Radiopharmaceuticals; and Entelos, which makes computer models of disease. The group, which began investing in 2004, funded nine companies, according to its Web site, and invested about $1.5 million in each deal.

The unit to be run by Dalton (pictured to the right) will be investing more in each deal and has the “fundamental task of increasing product flow,” Ed Harrigan, Pfizer’s senior vice president, worldwide business development, tells the AP. He wouldn’t say, however, exactly how much funding is being provided.

Dalton likely will hire two more members for the new venture arm, which already includes Debra Yu and William Burkoth, who were part of the strategic investment group. The unit may begin investing as soon as this year, and will consider a wide range of companies, including biotech, specialty pharma, diagnostics, drug delivery and other health care technology providers, the AP writes.