A spokeswoman for Pfizer in Ireland - which employs around 5,000 people - has said the company's operations in this country will not be affected by today's announcement of an overhaul of its research and development operations worldwide.
The spokeswoman said Pfizer's operations in Ireland were focused mainly on manufacturing, financial shared services and commercial sales.
As part of the changes in its R&D operations, Pfizer has announced plans to close a research site at Sandwich in Kent in England, affecting up to 2,400 jobs there.
Last May, as part of a restructuring of manufacturing operations worldwide, Pfizer announced that it was cutting 275 jobs at Newbridge in County Kildare, while it was seeking buyers for three plants in Dublin and Cork where more than 500 people are employed.
Earlier, the pharmaceutical giant said it had quadrupled profit in the final quarter of 2010, boosted by its acquisition of Wyeth, but predicted tough challenges this year.
Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, reported fourth-quarter profit of $2.9 billion, slightly better than analysts expected. Revenues for the world's biggest drug maker rose 6% in the October-December period to $17.6 billion.
Pfizer said that revenues were mostly favourably impacted by its October 15, 2009, takeover of Wyeth, whose legacy products contributed $2.3 billion to total sales.
For all of the year, profit fell 4% to $8.3 billion, in line with expectations. Revenues in 2010 climbed 36% to $67.8 billion compared with the prior year, said the New York-based maker of best-selling Lipitor and Viagra.
'I am pleased with our solid financial performance again this quarter and this year despite continued challenging market conditions,' Ian Read, Pfizer's new president and chief executive, said.
Read, who took the helm of the drug maker in December, said that Pfizer was lowering its 2012 revenue target and expanding its share buyback programme. He said the board had approved an additional share buyback programme for up to $5 billion, which increases the total programme to $9 billion.
Looking ahead, Read said the company planned to reduce spending on research and development to better weather a challenging environment, which includes the expiration of its patent on Lipitor in many major markets later this year.
