Pfizer Diagnoses Fido, Too

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) is jumping into the diagnostic business with all four paws. The company announced yesterday that it's purchasing Synbiotics to gain access to its veterinary immunodiagnostics business.

Immunodiagnostics measure antibodies as a way to determine whether a human or animal has been infected with a virus or bacteria. It's a good fit for Pfizer, which already sells plenty of animal-health products. More importantly, Pfizer seems to be using the purchase as a stepping stone to launch other diagnostic products for animals.

It's easy to forget about the animal-health division since Pfizer is so focused on human diseases. But the combined sales are fairly substantial, having contributed 5% of the revenue during the first nine months of the year. Looked at another way, if the combined sales of the animal-health products were a drug, they'd be second in sales behind Lipitor on the company's product revenue list.

The push into animal diagnostics may be a reaction to Merck (NYSE: MRK) and sanofi-aventis (NYSE: SNY) rejoining their animal-health divisions after a complicated breakup that allowed Merck to buy Schering-Plough. The two still need to divest of certain assets to make antitrust regulators happy -- Reuters reported that Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Novartis (NYSE: NVS) are bidding on the products -- but once they join forces, the new joint venture will be larger than Pfizer's animal-health division.

The animal-health industry is only growing at a 4% clip, so don't expect the division to suddenly fix all of Pfizer's problems. Still considering the instability with human drugs -- failed clinical trials and patent expirations -- having a solid diversified revenue stream could be just what the veterinarian ordered.

Interested in keeping track of Pfizer's products that treat those with both two and four legs? Click here to add it to My Watchlist, which will help you keep track of all our Foolish analysis on Pfizer.