Pfizer Inc. nearly tripled CEO Ian Read's compensation in 2011, his first full year as top executive of the world's largest drug maker, which has been cutting costs and making other moves to compensate for generic competition hurting sales of top medicines.

Pfizer Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit fell by half because it sold less Lipitor, the cholesterol fighter that's the biggest drug ever to go off patent, and took some one-time charges.

Three prominent senators are demanding that drugmaker Pfizer Inc. produce documents about its deals with insurers to get them to cover its cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor, rather than two generic versions just hitting drugstores.

Lipitor is so valuable that its maker, Pfizer Inc., is practically paying people to keep taking the blockbuster cholesterol medicine after generic competition hits the U.S. market this week.

Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. beat Wall Street expectations with higher profit and revenue in the third quarter, the last before generic competition starts wiping out sales of Lipitor, the cholesterol blockbuster that has buoyed the company for years.

The cost of prescription medicines used by millions of people every day is about to plummet.