Less than a month after buying Wyeth, drug giant Pfizer Inc. has mapped out a new structure for its research and development operations. The plan, announced yesterday, includes closing six of the two companies’ 20 research facilities, reorganizing and consolidating others, and cutting the jobs of up to 2,000 scientists and laboratory technicians.

DuPont Co. offset falling sales and prices by cutting costs, and the chemical maker reported larger-than-expected third-quarter profits yesterday. DuPont has reduced spending by $900 million so far this year, just short of its full-year goal of $1 billion. Reduced costs led to a surprise profit of $409 million, or 45 cents per share, for the quarter ending Sept. 30, compared with $367 million, or 40 cents, in last year’s third quarter.

The world’s biggest drugmaker will become the owner today of several consumer health products long manufactured in the Richmond area. Pfizer Inc. said yesterday that it won U.S. and Canadian regulatory approval for its $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth. The deal, announced in January, is expected to close today. Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth employs about 1,200 people in the Richmond area.

Pfizer Inc.‘s $68 billion purchase of Wyeth will close Thursday after antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Canada cleared the deal.

Federal prosecutors hit Pfizer Inc. with a record-breaking $2.3 billion in penalties yesterday and called the world’s largest drugmaker a repeating corporate cheat for illegal drug promotions that plied doctors with free golf, massages and resort junkets. Announcing the penalty as a warning to all drug manufacturers, Justice Department officials said the overall settlement is the largest ever paid by a drug company for alleged violations of federal drug rules, and the $1.2 billion criminal fine is the largest ever in any U.S. criminal case. The total includes $1 billion in civil penalties and a $100 million criminal forfeiture.

Altria Group Inc., the largest U.S. tobacco company, said second-quarter profit rose 8.6 percent after price increases. The Henrico County-based maker of Marlboro cigarettes also raised its full-year forecast. Net income increased to $1.01 billion, or 49 cents a share, from $930 million, or 45 cents, a year earlier. Excluding items, adjusted earnings were 50 cents a share, beating the analysts’ estimates of 47 cents.

Shareholders of drugmaker Wyeth yesterday voted overwhelmingly to be bought by industry giant Pfizer Inc. The $68 billion acquisition transforms New York-based Pfizer from being primarily a maker of blockbuster pills to a one-stop shop for medical treatments. That’s because New Jersey-based Wyeth, the No. 12 drugmaker, brings multibillion-dollar products and substantial expertise in creating and manufacturing biologic drugs, vaccines, nonprescription medicines and animal health products.

Applicants to the Pfizer prescription program will have to sign a statement that they are suffering financial hardship and provide a “pink slip” or similar employer notice. Applications will be accepted through Dec. 31, with medication provided for up to 12 months after approval—or until the person becomes insured again.
  Call: (866) 706-2400 toll-free to sign up.

Pfizer Inc. says it will provide 70 of its most widely prescribed prescription drugs—including Lipitor and Viagra—for free to people who have lost their jobs and health insurance. The world’s biggest drugmaker said yesterday that it will give away the medicines for up to a year to Americans who lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been on the Pfizer drug for three months or more.

Pfizer Inc. said yesterday that after completing its buyout of Wyeth, it will form two main research units—focusing on traditional pharmaceuticals and cutting-edge biotechnology drugs. The company’s planned PharmaTherapeutics Research Group will be headed by Martin Mackay, the current leader of Pfizer’s global research and development unit. The current president of Wyeth research, Mikael Dolsten, will head the biotechnology unit.

Drug giant Merck & Co. is buying Schering-Plough Corp. for $41.1 billion in a deal that gives Merck key new businesses, access to a promising pipeline of new products and the chance to further cut costs, including eliminating about 16,000 jobs. Merck hopes the cash-and-stock deal, which would vault it to the world’s No. 2 drugmaker, will help it better compete in an industry facing slumping sales, tough competition from generics and intense pricing pressures.

Top Wyeth executives will get multimillion-dollar cash payouts related to the pharmaceutical company’s pending acquisition by Pfizer Inc., according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The payouts, totaling about $22 million, run as high as $10.25 million for Chief Executive Officer Bernard Poussot, according to Wyeth’s annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing also notes Wyeth faces lawsuits aiming to block the Pfizer deal.

Eager to dispel doubts about the difficulties of executing Pfizer Inc.‘s $68 billion tie-up with Wyeth, Pfizer’s chief executive said it will be done more like microsurgery than just stitching two huge corporations together. Jeffrey Kindler has spent two years transforming Pfizer into smaller, entrepreneurial research-and-marketing business units, making the companies easier to combine, he said.

Pfizer Inc. wants to buy the maker of Robitussin, Dimetapp and ChapStick, products with deep manufacturing roots in the Richmond area.

Wyeth’s operations include plants in Richmond and Henrico County.