S D Thetimeline

thetimeline d The ghosts of pharma past to imagine that the Beecham name would s ever be anything but paramount in the devel- Companies that were once household names can vanish— opment and marketing of pharmaceuticals. hidden or dissolved in mergers and acquisitions. In 1842, Englishman Thomas Beecham founded the Beecham’s Pills laxative busi- BY MARK S. LESNEY ness, and in 1859, he opened the first fac- One of the greatest powers of history lies sive litany of the history of drug discovery tory built solely to manufacture drugs. By in its ability to explain and influence the and development. They include John K. the late 1920s, the company was a major present. One of the greatest powers of Smith & Co. (founded in 1841), Beecham’s diversified pharmaceutical manufacturer, evolving technology lies in its ability to Pills (1842), Burroughs Wellcome and and by the 1940s, a major hub of pharma- erase history. As more and more of the Company (1880), and Mcleans Ltd. (1919). ceutical research. As the Beecham Group, Internet becomes the library of modern life, The Glaxo in the current name traces its his- the company would be a major international the past becomes fluid territory, trans- tory to Wellington, New Zealand, where producer of antibiotics and other pharma- formable and edited. Although written in a ceuticals, merging with SmithKline Beckman precomputer age, a telling parable of the in 1989 (see box, “Being Beckman”). modern risks due to electronic history is In 2000, the umbrella SmithKline found in the book 1984, where the collec- Beecham dropped the name, becoming tive power of the Ministry of Truth under only the SK of GlaxoSmithKline. The local the aegis of Big Brother ensured that “The SmithKline Beechams throughout the world past was erased, the erasure was forgotten.” became subsidiaries to the newly formed In the modern world, it is not only gov- corporate giant. ernments that censor, edit, and remove webpages; corporate histories also are No longer Wellcome? subject to revision and disappearance when Similarly, the Wellcome name might have mergers, acquisitions, and rebranding of once seemed sacrosanct in the history of companies at best lead to a truncation of pharmacy. Burroughs Wellcome and Co. was the past, and at worst to an erasure. For founded in London by two American phar- this reason, it is sometimes good to look macists, Henry Wellcome and Silas at the histories of “lost” corporate entities Burroughs, in 1880. After a long and pros- and to understand what lies behind the cur- perous independence, Wellcome merged rent corporate acronyms that appear so with Glaxo in 1995. Then, in 2000, the modern and new. Wellcome name lost further prominence as A good example of what can happen in a pharmaceutical giant when GlaxoWell- the realm of business history is found in the come became simply the G in the Glaxo- evolution of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). It was SmithKline moniker. As with SmithKline formed from a number of venerable old com- Beecham, Wellcome is still a living compo- panies, some all-but-forgotten, and more nent of the GlaxoWellcome subsidiaries of likely to be—at least by the general public. GSK throughout the word (2). But if history The risk of disappearance is not because is anything to go by, the long-term trend of corporations are necessarily ashamed of name attrition will occur even here, and it their histories or are unwilling for them to Joseph Nathan established a trading com- may only be a matter of time as the promi- be available, but because, by their very pany in 1873 that was a forerunner to Glaxo’s nence of GSK as a corporate entity grows. nature, businesses must be forward-looking, milk powder drying operation. Several of and the past is not their primary concern. these companies maintain a presence in the Memories of Massengill names of GSK subsidiaries—but they are But compared to the retirement of the Myers Many paths to GSK no longer the pinnacle of corporate evolu- Laboratories from active concern, and living The GSK website has an extensive timeline, tion as they once were (see box, “Lest they through the diminished presence of detailing most of the corporate threads that be forgotten . .”). Beecham, Burroughs, and Wellcome, one have woven in and out to create one of the company in particular is noticeably absent largest pharmaceutical companies in the Bye, bye Beecham? in what remains of GSK corporate history— PHOTO: FDA world (1). These companies form an impres- It would have been difficult in an earlier era the S. E. Massengill Co. And yet, in its day, 2004 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY JANUARY 2004 MODERN DRUG DISCOVERY 25 dthetimeline Massengill held both fame and infamy in a States wanted a liquid formulation. Harold history spanning the years from 1897 to Cole Watkins, Massengill’s chief chemist, Being Beckman 1971—a past now represented more clearly tested several liquid formulations and chose in the history of the FDA and in eBay mem- the sweet-tasting—but toxic—diethylene Some companies are regurgitated after orabilia than in the presented memory of the glycol as the solvent of choice. The company being swallowed, like Jonah from the corporate giant that ultimately subsumed it. added artificial raspberry flavoring to whale. One such “survivor” of the GSK The S. E. Massengill Co. was founded in improve palatability. Safety testing on the mergers and acquisitions process, of 1897 by Norman Hood Massengill and new formulation was not performed, as it particular interest to chemists, was Samuel Evans Massengill, M.D. The com- was not then legally required. Beckman. In 1982, SmithKline acquired pany’s main research and production labo- On the market for two months in 1937, Beckman Instruments, Inc., to become ratory was in Bristol, TN, in a historic set Elixir of Sulfanilamide killed more than 100 SmithKline Beckman. When, in 1988, of buildings that had been the original site people in 15 states, many of them children, SmithKline Beckman and Beecham of King College (3). S. E. Massengill was a by destroying their kidneys and liver. The Group merged, they formed SmithKline relatively small company, manufacturing FDA managed to recall the gallon jugs of Beecham—a typical disappearance of a everything from analgesics to ointments the liquid once the poisonings began to company moniker. But in 1989, the with a quaint tendency to name many of its appear, not because they were deadly but Beckman name re-emerged as the marketed drugs in homage to the Massen- because they had been mislabeled. By def- company spun back out as an independ- gill name: Anagill, Dermagill, Giagill, Resa- inition, an elixir required the use of alcohol. ent venture, to ultimately become gill, Salogill, etc. The company’s old bottles Beckman-Coulter in 1998 (6). Another and the commemorative coins distributed company that survived merger with the by its salesmen are staples among collec- “My chemists and I deeply forces of GSK to regain its own name tors of pharmaceutical memorabilia, in part regret the fatal results, and market was Allergan, an eye and because of Massengill’s strong claim to but there was no error in skin care company, currently most legislative, if not corporate, fame. notable for BoTox, which was acquired the manufacture of the For the S. E. Massengill Co. is remem- by SmithKline Beckman in 1982 and spun bered not for its commercial successes but product. I do not feel out again by the end of the decade. for its tragic role in helping to ensure the there was any responsibility passage of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and on our part.” name-retaining part of the new corporate Cosmetic Act (4). entity Beecham–Massengill Pharmaceuticals. Sulfanilamide was one of the first antibi- Today, after mergers and acquisitions, and otics—the active component isolated from Had Massengill simply called their formu- perhaps some selective memory loss, the Gerhard Domagk’s miracle drug, Prontosil, lation Liquid Sulfanilamide, the federal gov- Massengill name survives not in corporate and proven to be an effective treatment for ernment would have been legally helpless. logos or even timelines, but as the trademark deadly streptococcal infections. Although it The company was ultimately prosecuted for for certain women’s health care products, was commonly sold in pill and powder form, the mislabeling, not the poisonings. At the brought into the GSK lineup through the a Massengill salesman convinced the com- time, “Selling toxic drugs was, undoubtedly, Beecham connection. The old Massengill pany that his clients in the Southern United bad for business and could damage a firm’s laboratory building, renewed and refur- reputation, but it was not illegal” (5). bished, lives on as the site of the totally unre- Afterwards, in a prepared statement, lated King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.king Samuel Evans Massengill made his apology: pharm.com), founded in 1994 as a provider Lest they be forgotten . “My chemists and I deeply regret the fatal of cardiovascular, women’s health, and In a classic case of big fish eat little fish results, but there was no error in the man- endrocrinology products. ad infinitum, the entities that became ufacture of the product. I do not feel there was any responsibility on our part.” Harold GSK also swallowed a wide variety of References other pharmaceutical and specialty Watkins, on the other hand “apologized” to (1) GlaxoSmithKline timeline; www.gsk.com/ companies over the years. The list is his victims and their families by committing about/background.htm. suicide upon finding out the effects of what (2) GSK group companies; www.gsk.com/ extensive, including many companies financial/reports/ar/report/group_com/ that are no longer remembered.

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