Product Liability Attorney Blog

When the news got out in December that Pfizer’s chairman and CEO was receiving $9.6 million dollars as part of his retirement package, the question on everyone’s mind was whether he was being forced out.

Jeff Kindler was, after all, only CEO of Pfizer for 4-and-a-half years; that seems like a large payout for such a short time period. According to a filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kindler received "a bonus payment of approximately $3.3 million in cash, a short-term incentive award of $1.8 million, as well as severance pay in the amount of $4.5 million." This retirement package was including a pre-existing retirement benefit that gave him about $6.9 million on top of a generous stock portfolio.

In 2009 alone, Kindler was reported to have earned $13.7 million, according to the Associated Press, so it makes one wonder why, with such high earnings, he would choose to retire. Then again, Pfizer's declining share prices and the constant failures of its new drugs may be the culprit. Although I doubt that the long list of lawsuits being filed against one of the company's biggest sellers, Effexor XR, is be helping matters. Now that the controversial antidepressant's patent has expired, along with that of its $13-billion-a-year cholesterol drug Lipitor, Kindler's replacement Ian Read has his work cut out for him.

With the failures of new drugs coupled with the patent expiration of Lipitor and Effexor happening on Kindler's watch, it is a wonder that his retirement package would be so large. However, since lawsuits filed against Pfizer on behalf of Effexor are claiming that they failed to properly warn the public of Effexor's adverse side effects, Kindler's retirement package seems like the least of the company’s problems. It may be worth the money just to get a fresh start.