[2] Read was born in Forfar, Scotland, to a Scottish mother, but his parents returned to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when he was six-weeks-old, and he grew up there.
[3] Read received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College London in 1974.
[4] Read has spent his entire career with Pfizer, starting in 1978 as an operational auditor.
[7] On 5 December 2010,[4][1] when Read "took over from Jeffrey Kindler as Pfizer’s CEO, the drug firm–the world’s largest–was facing the impending patent expiration of Lipitor, the bestselling drug ever made, and the utter failure of one of the most lavishly funded research laboratories on the planet to develop much of anything.
Doing so is absolutely critical: 34% of Pfizer’s revenue growth over the past three years has come from increasing prices on existing drugs, according to SSR, a Stamford, Conn.-based consulting firm.