SOME people fear that yesterday’s decision by Pfizer to scale back its Irish operations could prove to be as important as the day when the US pharmaceutical giant decided to set up operations back in 1969.

PFIZER chief executive Hank McKinnell yesterday said doctors should be made aware of the health risks in prescribing Celebrex to their patients, but the company does not plan to recall its popular arthritis drug.

About 100 noisy Aids activists carrying mock corpses disrupted a speech by the head of Pfizer, accusing multi-national drug firms of denying lifesaving drugs to HIV sufferers by charging inflated prices.

PFIZER has given a major boost to a UN campaign to eradicate an eye infection that causes blindness, by providing a free antibiotic to treat the 150 million people afflicted.