McKinnell was known as an aggressive and hard line advocate of trade sanctions against developing countries in disputes over patents and other intellectual property rights on medicines.
Following falling share prices, McKinnell resigned the CEO position on July 28, 2006, amid dissatisfaction from the board of directors and declining investor confidence and was replaced by Jeff Kindler on that day.
However, many industry analysts criticized McKinnell for diluting shareholder value with these expensive stock-for-stock acquisitions that obviously paid a premium for the underlying value of the acquired company.
According to documents Pfizer filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, McKinnell received a base salary in 2005 of $2,270,500, and a bonus of $3,700,000.
He also received $145,814 in other compensation (primarily tax payments made by Pfizer on behalf of employees), and nearly $5.5 million in long-term incentive payouts.