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P&G Pharmaceuticals history
P&G Pharmaceuticals company history timeline
Morgens remained CEO until 1974.
Procter & Gamble improved the technology over the years, and added a premium brand, Luvs, in 1976.
Taking over as president and CEO was A.G. Lafley, who had joined the company in June 1977 as a brand assistant for Joy and had most recently been in charge of the global beauty care unit.
In 1977, after three years of test marketing, Procter & Gamble introduced Rely tampons, which were rapidly accepted in the market as a result of their “super-absorbent” qualities.
In 1981 John G. Smale became CEO of Procter & Gamble.
The company also entered the over-the-counter (OTC) drug market with the 1982 purchase of Norwich-Eaton Pharmaceuticals, makers of Pepto Bismol and Chloraseptic.
The company completed its biggest purchase in 1985, with the acquisition of the Richardson-Vicks Company for $1.2 billion, and bought Dramamine and Met-amucil from G. D. Searle & Company.
In 1985, unable to squelch perennial rumors linking Procter & Gamble’s famous moon-and-stars logo to Satanism, the company reluctantly removed the logo from product packages.
“The House that Ivory Built: 150 Years of Procter & Gamble,” Advertising Age, August 20, 1987.
In September 1988 Procter & Gamble made its first move into the cosmetics business with the purchase of Noxell Corporation, maker of Noxema products and Cover Girl cosmetics, in a $1.3 billion stock swap.
Former chairman John Smale and Edwin L. Artzt, who replaced Smale in early 1990, have been quite successful at adapting to new market conditions—container recycling has taken on new importance at P & G for the 1990s.
While P&G expanded its presence in cosmetics and fragrances through the July 1991 acquisition of the worldwide Max Factor and Betrix lines from Revlon, Inc. for $1.03 billion, it also divested holdings in some areas it had outgrown.
In 1992 the corporation sold about one-half of its Cellulose & Specialties pulp business to Weyerhaeuser Co. for $600 million.
Meanwhile, Pantene Pro–V was introduced in 1992 and quickly became the fastest–growing shampoo brand in the world.
Company sales surpassed the $30 billion mark in 1993.
Swasy, Alecia, Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble, New York: Times Books, 1993.
1993: Major restructuring is launched, involving 13,000 job cuts and 30 plant closures.
In 1994 P&G entered the European tissue and towel market through the purchase of Vereinigte Papierwerke Schickedanz AG’s European tissue unit, and added the prestige fragrance business of Giorgio Beverly Hills, Inc.
In July 1995 Artzt retired, and was replaced as chairman and CEO by Pepper.
The $2.4 billion program, which culminated in 1997, resulted in annual after–tax savings of more than $600 million.
Actonel was developed by Procter & Gamble and gained FDA approval in 1998.
The company sold its Duncan Hiñes baking mix line to Aurora Foods of Ohio for $445 million in 1998.
In the meantime, P&G remained on the lookout for acquisitions and completed two significant ones in the latter months of 1999.
Among new products introduced in 1999 was Swiffer, an electrostatic dusting mop that was part of a new category of household product: quick cleaning.
1999: Premium pet food maker Iams Company is purchased.
Early in 2000 Procter & Gamble placed itself in the middle of a major takeover battle in the pharmaceutical industry.
The deal, completed in May 2002, was valued at about $900 million.
These two new products helped increase global sales of the Crest brand by 50 percent, propelling it past the $1 billion mark during fiscal 2002.
In September 2003, under a marketing and distribution agreement with AstraZeneca PLC, P&G began selling Prilosec OTC, an over-the-counter version of AstraZeneca's blockbuster heartburn medication, Prilosec.
2003: Company acquires a controlling interest in German hair-care firm Wella AG.
The snacks and beverages unit accounted for only 7 percent of the company's total revenues in fiscal 2004.
In January 2005 P&G announced an acquisition of Gillette, forming the largest consumer goods company and placing Unilever into second place.
The companies officially merged on October 1, 2005.Liquid Paper, and Gillette’s stationery division, Paper Mate were sold to Newell Rubbermaid.
At the beginning of fiscal 2005 P&G realigned its business units, shifting its five previous units into three: global beauty care; global health, baby, and family care; and global household care.
In 2006, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi-Aventis filed a lawsuit against Roche Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline claiming that Roche and GSK had made false and misleading claims about their osteoporosis product, Boniva, which were intended to deprive P&G and Sanofi of profit.
Experts cast doubt over scientists’ claims for Actonel, Times Higher Education (02/2006)
In 2008, P&G branched into the record business with its sponsorship of Tag Records, as an endorsement for TAG Body Spray.
On August 25, 2009, the Ireland-based pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott announced they had bought P&G’s prescription-drug business for $3.1 billion.
In 2009, established that Eastell had been negligent in making misleading claims but that the claims were not deliberately dishonest.
In April 2011, Procter & Gamble was fined by the European Commission for participating in a price-fixing cartel in Europe.
P&G exited the food business in 2012 when it sold its Pringles snack food business to Kellogg’s for $2.75bn after the $2.35bn deal with former suitor Diamond Foods fell short.The company had previously sold Jif peanut butter and Folgers coffee in separate transactions to Smucker’s.
Procter & Gamble was a tier one sponsor of London’s 2012 Olympic Games and sponsored 150 Athletes.
In August 2014, after a record revenue year of $87 billion, P&G announced they were streamlining, dropping 100 brands to concentrate on only 65 which produced over 95% of the company’s profits.
Procter & Gamble was a tier one sponsor of Sochi’s 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
In 2019, Procter & Gamble recorded more than $67 billion in sales, second to manufacturing giant, Johnson & Johnson.
© 2022 Procter & Gamble
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P&G Pharmaceuticals may also be known as or be related to P&G Pharmaceuticals and P&g Pharmaceuticals.