Design Thinking and Innovation at Pfizer, Inc.

The history of Pfizer dates back to 1849 when German-American cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart founded Charles Pfizer and Company as a fine chemicals business, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. On June 22, 1942, Pfizer became a listed company when 240,000 shares of new common stock were offered to the public.

In 1950, as part of the result of Pfizer’s first discovery program, the company started selling Terramycin (oxytetracycline), a broad-spectrum antibiotic. This was the first pharmaceutical product sold in the US under the Pfizer label. Terramycin, Pfizer’s first proprietary pharmaceutical product, also marked the beginning of the Pfizer Pharmaceutical Sales Force...