And the next Pfizer CEO is...

Filling the leadership void...

Three ambitious executives are vying to succeed CEO Hank McKinnell...

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - If only the rest of Big Pharma were as lucky as Pfizer. In the midst of what most top-level managers agree is a CEO talent drought, the New York-based pharma-colossus has no less than three potential CEOs vying to take over when current top guy Hank McKinnell retires in 2008. But there are quite a few sharp elbows being thrown in the race to the top.

Last year, Pfizer (Research) CEO Hank McKinnell promoted three ambitious top executives -- Karen Katen, head of sales and marketing, Jeff Kindler, general counsel and David Shedlarz, chief financial officer -- expanding their responsibilities and bestowing each with a vice chairmanship. The race was on. And one of them will emerge as the 13th CEO in Pfizer's 157-year history.

Its stock is off 40 percent since 2001. Profits are down. CEO Hank McKinnell's to-do list? Create hit drugs, pick a successor and convince Wall Street he can make all the company's pieces fit together.

Katen and Shedlarz appear to be working nicely together. Last year, they were given the onerous task of cutting $4 billion in annual costs by 2008. Less than a year into the project, they have already achieved more than $800 million in savings, well ahead of schedule.

But insiders claim their succession battle is creating factions, and distracting the company from its larger goals -- namely: becoming a growth company again. "There are David people and there are Karen people," says one insider of the two leading candidates. "And they're all pulling in different directions, trying to make their guy look good."

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