Drugs: The Little Company That Got Well

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Mr. Five-by-Five. McKeen had clearly prescribed the right medicine: the company last year set profit records for the eleventh consecutive year. With 68 plants scattered around the world—and ten more planned for the next year or two—it is now one of the world's top producers of animal medicines and feed supplements and of chemical additives for food and beverages. It is the third largest company in the U.S. fragrance market and in the manufacture of lipsticks. Overseas sales have grown so fast that they now account for nearly half of Pfizer's total, have given it the largest sales abroad of any U.S. ethical drug house. Potentially profitable but competitively risky antibiotics, which in 1953 accounted for 64% of Pfizer's sales, today bring in only 29% .

A chemical engineer who began his career at Pfizer as a $25-a-week control chemist, McKeen has surrounded himself with bright executives and given them complete authority to make their own decisions. He has set a goal that everyone in the company knows as "five by five"—$500 million in sales for Pfizer by 1965.