Year: 2019-20

Company: Pfizer

Liaison(s): Bonnie Vlahos, John Werth

Pfizer is a leading biopharmaceutical company with a strong foundation in biotechnology. Grounded in a powerful purpose, breakthroughs that change patients’ lives, Pfizer translates advanced science and technologies into therapies that matter for patients in need. Focusing on pharmaceutical development and innovation, their worldwide research and development is rooted in five disease areas: oncology, internal medicine, vaccines, inflammation, and rare disease.

One therapeutic focus area for Pfizer within their inflammation disease area is medical dermatology, which includes a variety of skin diseases known as inflammatory dermatoses. One of Pfizer’s currently approved topical products, Crisaborole, has proven to be effective and is approved for the treatment of mild to moderate atopic dermatitis (AD), commonly known as eczema.

As directed by Pfizer’s Clinical Development Global Innovative Business Unit, our Team Master’s Project (TMP) was responsible for evaluating opportunities and developing the framework for two lifecycle proposals for Crisaborole. The team provided a comprehensive assessment of inflammatory skin and autoimmune diseases, along with their respective treatment landscapes and developed an objective scoring tool to analyze and rank 25 diseases. This tool was the foundation for further investigation into clinical trial potential, which led to the team’s recommendations to Pfizer.