Pfizer, China, A Vaccine And Intellectual Property

Here’s an interesting aftermath to Pfizer’s $68 billion purchase of Wyeth. To win approval in China, the big drugmaker has agreed to sell an animal vaccine for a reported $50 million to Harbin Pharmaceuticals, which is mostly owned by a provincial government and Citic Capital, a state-affiliated Chinese investment group.

If not for the sale, Chinese antitrust officials argued that Pfizer would now control half of the domestic market for mycoplasma hyopneumoniae vaccines, which are used to inoculate pigs, The Financial Times points out, adding that experts believe the sale is likely to be the first of many more transfers of intellectual property to Chinese groups arising from antitrust rulings. The vaccine is made in Nebraska and Pfizer retains the IP rights to RespiSure outside of the mainland and now will only sell Wyeth’s MH vaccine in China, which has a 12 per cent market share. As part of the agreement, Pfizer has to provide Harbin with technical assistance and training for up to three years to help it learn how to produce the vaccine.