Sex, sailing and the $280bn man

MILLIONS of men have Hank McKinnell to thank for being better lovers. But the boss of Viagramaker Pfizer is feeling unloved at the moment.

The drug was third in a recent test of impotence treatments, and despite his robust defence - he criticised the quality of the trials - it adds to pressure on the mildmannered Canadian who heads the $280 billion (£165 billion) pharmaceuticals group, the world's biggest.

Since taking the helm of Pfizer in 2001, McKinnell has been accused of failing to secure a strong flow of lucrative drugs coming through its own pipeline, of seeing its patented treatments legally challenged by generic rivals, and presiding over a decline in the share price. But he is not alone - other bosses of the sector face the same flak.

So isn't he tempted simply to swallow a fistful of the group's Zoloft anti-depressants?

'No, I'm a very cheerful person. I'm very healthy. I bike, swim, sail and work out,' he says.

The youthful 60-year-old shrugs off the criticism, but his fascination with business for its own sake, tends to make him speak in riddles such as: 'I have learned that challenges are opportunities in working clothes.'

And echoing footballer Eric Cantona's famously impenetrable seagulls quote: 'I'm a sailor and know that 30 miles out you cannot see below the horizon. In our business, the horizon is probably three years because of the uncertainties there. This is a high-risk, high-reward business.'

It's certainly been high-reward for McKinnell, a divorced father of four grown up children and is now engaged to Joanna Slonecka, a coroporate image consultant he met in London eight years ago.

They live in Greenwich, Connecticut, just 45 minutes from Pfizer's HQ, and they have a London bolt-hole in Mayfair.

McKinnell earned almost £6 million last year, excluding stock options, but he pushes himself hard. He wakes at 5am and is at his desk by seven. Evenings are usually spent at events linked to his role with health and education institutions, including President Bush's advisory council on HIV/Aids.

Education is his passion - 'My family made me who I am, but my education made me what I am.'

As a young man he assumed he would go into the family's cargo shipping business, but by 1966, he had a wife along with an MBA and his aspirations had grown. He grasped a $10,000 fellowship at Stanford where, after gaining a PhD at 27, his goal was to be a business professor. He joined Pfizer for practical experience.

He says one of his priorities is 'influencing the environment'. And his mission is to promote the economic and health values of pharmaceuticals to politicians, regulators, investors and, not least, patients.

'The informed patient is a very important part of efficient healthcare delivery,' he says.

'If patients are educated to truly understand the progress of their disease and what they can do to make a difference, costly resources such as emergency care in hospitals, visits from doctors and surgery can be saved and healthcare outcomes are better.'

But Pfizer, like all big pharmaceutical companies, faces relentless accusations of inflated prices, long patents and huge profits.

Such assaults galvanise him. 'As long as the focus of state controlled healthcare in Europe and elsewhere is on the high cost and not the economic and health value of prescription drugs, we will be defined as the problem.

'That definition suggests the solution is rationing and price control. We need to shift focus to the high cost of disease and how patient education, prevention, early diagnosis and the appropriate use of drugs can save costs at the front end.

'By working in private/public partnerships, we can prove we are not the problem, but part of the solution. That is what I'm trying to accomplish.'

He concedes that Pfizer must explain itself better and accepts that the business must adapt to meet the expectations of society and health providers. He points to Pfizer's partnership with healthcare providers in Florida, which has saved the state more than £19 million in the past two years.

He flew to Europe last month to propose similar partnerships in Italy and Germany while his aides lobbied the UK Government.

How does he fit it all in? He smiles: 'I don't play golf, I don't have school-age children and I'm very well supported.'

He is also driven by a determination to make Pfizer the 'world's most valued company' - not in terms of its stock market worth, but 'most valued by patients'.

Pfizer wields formidable power - it will spend £4 billion on research and development, comarketing and licensing drugs this year. But one of its fastestgrowing costs is the legal defence of patents.

McKinnell states: 'We don't have a problem with legitimate generic drug makers, but we're taking action against those that infringe our patents.

'Generics are just a natural part of our bargain with society. We make enormous investments - a typical drug costs £500 million and takes about a decade to develop.

'If we're successful, we have about ten years to earn a return before the patent expires and generics come on to the market at much lower prices.'

And that, he says dispensing with the business-speak,

' is good for society'.