Pfizer

Pfizer Inc. (ˈfaɪzər ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer (1824–1906) and his cousin Charles F. Erhart (1821–1891). Pfizer develops and produces medicines and vaccines for immunology, oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology. The company's largest products by sales are the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine ($37 billion in 2022 revenues), Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir ($18 billion in 2022 revenues), Apixaban ($6 billion in 2022 revenues), a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine ($6 billion in 2022 revenues), and Palbociclib ($5 billion in 2022 revenues). In 2022, 42% of the company's revenues came from the United States, 8% came from Japan, and 50% came from other countries. Pfizer was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index from 2004 to August 2020. The company ranks 43rd on the Fortune 500 and 39th on the Forbes Global 2000. Pfizer was founded in 1849 as "Charles Pfizer & Company" by Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart, two cousins who had immigrated to the United States from Ludwigsburg, Germany, the year before. The business produced chemical compounds, and was headquartered on Bartlett Street in Williamsburgh, New York where they produced an antiparasitic called santonin. This was an immediate success, although it was production of citric acid that led to Pfizer's growth in the 1880s. Pfizer continued to buy property in the area (by now the Williamsburg district of the city of Brooklyn, New York and beginning in 1898, the City of Greater New York) to expand its lab and factory, retaining offices on Flushing Avenue until the 1960s; the Brooklyn plant ultimately closed in 2009. Following their success with citric acid, Pfizer (at the now-demolished 295 Washington Avenue) and Erhart (at 280 Washington Avenue) established their main residences in the nearby Clinton Hill district, known for its concentration of Gilded Age wealth.