There was either a darned good reason that Jeff Kindler’s team didn’t call Howie Robin at Nektar Therapeutics in advance to say Exubera was being discontinued, or it was a colossal blunder. The official Pfizer line is that the info was material so it was best not to say anything ahead of time. But you may recall, that didn’t sit too well with Howie, who skewered Jeff in a press release yesterday in which he pointedly noted that he only learned the Exubera news along with the rest of the world.

“Nektar has been very disappointed in Pfizer’s performance in marketing Exubera. Pfizer has publicly acknowledged its organizational difficulties and resulting poor performance in launching Exubera. This has culminated in their announcement today. We are evaluating all of our options with respect to Pfizer’s Exubera announcement to protect the interests of Nektar.”

Ironically, this occurs as Kindler is pushing harder than ever to strike deals to fill a feeble pipeline. But what will those biotechs, which are eager to take big pharma money, think when Jeff’s team comes knocking now? Do you think they’ll be inspired by the way Nektar was treated? Some Wall Streeters think not. Morgan Stanley analyst Jami Rubin wrote in a research note she was surprised at how Pfizer delivered the news to Nektar: “Such tactics can’t be good for your ‘partner of choice’ reputation,” Reuters reports.

Natixis Bleichroeder analyst Jon LeCroy notes that Pfizer also abandoned its partnership with Neurocrine Biosciences last year after the FDA rejected a form of a sleep drug. “If it’s your partner, (the info) is financially material to both. I just find that an odd explanation of how you could leave your partner out of the loop like that,” he tells Reuters. “If you’re a small biotech and you’ve seen how they’ve treated their tiny partners, I would argue that, yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to partner with Pfizer right now, and that’s not what they need with the weakness in their pipeline.”

But Edward Jones analyst Linda Bannister says there will be plenty of biotechs that will still drool: “I think there are a lot of companies that have products in development who would be willing to strike a deal with Pfizer because they know Pfizer has a lot of marketing muscle.”