Amazing resources, lots of bureaucracy - Director, Clinical Development Pfizer Employee Review

3.0
11 Dec 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pfizer had amazing resources both in terms of financial resources and in terms of expertise within the company. Also, it was incredibly supportive of working women (or at least, my own managers certainly were), with many women (and men) being part-time or flex-time. This enabled people to have balanced family lives, and when their children needed them less, it was possible to "gear up" and take on positions of greater responsibility (one wasn't stuck on a mommy track forever). This resulted in a happy, loyal, productive workforce--at least until the site was closed. It was really great working there while it lasted.

Cons

Now that I'm in a startup, I recognize that Pfizer suffered from a very large bureaucracy that really added inertia to all kinds of things...everything from clinical trial design to contracting to...really everything. For example, now (in a startup) I can obtain contracts myself within 2 minutes; at Pfizer it took days. Sometimes a contract-in-progress at Pfizer would disappear into a black hole (such as Legal review) for weeks, and there would be nothing I could do to shake it loose. That just doesn't happen in a startup. Another thing that really decreased morale was that it was apparent that some sites at Pfizer (Pfizer had lots of sites...fewer now) were "more equal" than others, sometimes treating those at other sites like merely "hands" and not valuing their potentially intelligent input. At an extreme, this hierarchical posturing would result sometimes in an incorrect decision (e.g., a study design) being implemented because of intersite politics: if the incorrect decision came from a "more equal" site, those from that site might be less likely to listen to critiques from colleagues at the "less equal" site. In such situations, eventually the colleagues at the "less equal" site, being told enough times to shut up and just do what they're told, would give up and just become the well-paid automatons that apparently the company wanted....or leave the project.

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5.0
12 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Organized program, beautiful office, lots of networking opportunities

Cons

Projects are not well planned out for interns to take on

2.0
3 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

A good amount of remote monitoring, which depending on how you view can be a positive.

Cons

Changing systems and inconsistent standards are applied to people. There are many differing models that often muddy how you are supposed to do your job, especially when other staff members don't quite understand. How do you interface with the changing models? There tends to be a lot of blame and foisting of responsibilities. Sometimes you can become overburdened with a lot of work, where people do not respect your time and think that their tasks should take priority. It is possible to be contacted late at night with work to do and then be criticized the next day for not being able to keep up.

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