SEC Asks Pfizer for Bextra, Celebrex Data

SEC Asks Pfizer for Bextra, Celebrex Data
Staff and agencies
09 August, 2005

By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer Tue Aug 9, 5:55 PM ET

NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc. is responding to a request from the Securities and Exchange Commission Securities and Exchange Commission for information and documents on its Bextra Bextra and Celebrex painkillers, the drugmaker said Tuesday in a filing.

New York-based Pfizer, the world‘s biggest drugmaker, had received similar requests for information and documents from the Department of Justice Department of Justice and a group of state attorneys general about Bextra and Celebrex, which along with Merck & Co.‘s painkiller, Vioxx Vioxx, are known as Cox-2 inhibitors.

In April, Pfizer‘s Bextra was pulled from the market because of safety risks. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Food and Drug Administration also ordered Pfizer and 19 other popular prescription competitors to provide stronger warnings about possible cardiovascular risk in pain relievers.

Caris & Co. analyst Le Anne Zhao said Pfizer will likely keep working with government officials on the Celebrex label. Bextra probably won‘t return to the market "until more studies have been done to show risk factors," Zhao said.

Also in Pfizer‘s filing Tuesday, the company said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency in July proposed a civil penalty of $275,000 to settle alleged violations of the Federal Clean Air Act at the company‘s Kalamazoo, Mich., facility.

Pfizer‘s filing also noted the Internal Revenue Service Internal Revenue Service has begun an audit of the company‘s returns for 2002 and 2003.

In midday trading, shares of Pfizer rose 49 cents to close at $26.70 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange.