
Pfizer, of course, is a pharmaceutical giant, which means that the drugs it manufactures are as complicated as the finest French pastries. Years of research, trials, and regulatory approval are required before the company can launch a product-an arduous process that invites a certain protectionist benevolence from the government in the form of patent monopolies. How kind of them, really. Yet these monopolies, like all monopolies, are temporary. And when that magic period expires, the competition-like a swarm of eager locusts-descends with cheaper generics. The inevitable “patent cliff,” one might call it, is fast approaching, and naturally, investors have been abuzz with concern. How quaint.