Pharmacia history

Among the international societies is the Fédération Internationale Pharmaceutique, founded in 1910 and supported by some 50 national societies, for the advancement of the professional and scientific interests of pharmacy on a worldwide basis.

Pharmacia began in 1911 in Stockholm with one product, the phospho-energon energy pills made from animal products.

In 1913 the company hired its first research scientist, a chemistry professor named Doctor Frederick W. Heyl.

By 1915 the company had suffered tremendous losses, all due to this campaign, most of it for the promotion of phospho-energon.

It tried selling chocolate and cocoa with phospho-energon in it; and in 1920 it began selling Quina Laroche, a type of Chinese wine.

The new enterprise, called Apotekarnes Droghandel AB, was officially formed in March 1921, and included the majority of the country’s leading chemists, including Pharmacia’s Grönfeldt.

In 1922 it was still expanding, with ever larger orders, but the profits were so low that all employees had to take a cut in wages.

By 1924 the extremely popular wafers were bringing in $795,000 a year or 21 percent of Upjohn's sales revenue.

One of his developments, Citro-carbonate, an effervescent antacid, reached sales of one million dollars in 1926.

In 1927 it started to produce vitamins.

When William Upjohn died in 1932, the job of running the company fell to his nephew, Doctor Lawrence N. Upjohn, who served in that post for 12 years.

The company spent 15,000 crowns on building a new alkaloid facility and, in 1933, started a Drogfarmen on which to grow its own ingredients for morphine, opiates, and belladonna.

Björn Ingelmann, a student, worked with them on the project, and it was he, in 1941, who identified and separated dextrose.

During the Second World War the team developed from this Dextran, a plasma substitute, which was in use by 1943.

In 1944 Lawrence Upjohn retired and Donald S. Gilmore became president.

In 1948 they established Pharmacia Laboratories Inc. in New York, with Elis Göth as director and Nathan Katz as secretary and financial advisor.

These meetings lasted until the 1950’s, when a new, more official, union was formed, the Läkemedels-Industri Föreningen (LIF).

In 1955, in conjunction with the Danish AS Pharmacia and the Dutch Organon, Pharmacia launched and marketed a line in hormones.

In 1957 the Upjohn Company introduced the first oral antidiabetes agent called Orinase.

By 1958 Upjohn was the sixth largest manufacturer of antibiotics.

Ray T. Parfet, president of the company beginning in 1961, also married into the family.

To control these and other licencing requirements, a separate company, Pharmacia International, was formed in 1967.

The company had been so tightly held that until 1968 no one who was not a family member or employee of Upjohn was permitted to sit on its board of directors.

One of the more significant developments for the company during this time was its 1974 development of Motrin, an anti-inflammatory agent widely prescribed in the treatment of arthritis and menstrual cramps.

Large firms in fact often keep the two functions organizationally separated (Eliasson 1976 Eliasson, G. 1976.

Boots Company of Britain licensed Upjohn to sell ibuprofen (Motrin's active ingredient), but in 1977 Boots entered the United States market itself, even while continuing to license Upjohn.

Cooper had joined Upjohn in 1980 and became renowned for improving the company's quality control and regulatory areas.

A price war ensued in 1981 when Boots sold its version of the drug at 20 to 30 percent less than Upjohn.

By 1984 both companies had extended the battle by producing over-the-counter ibuprofen pills Nuprin and Advil. As a result of this competition, Upjohn's dominant market position was eroded; by mid-1984 Boots gained 25 percent of the market share of prescriptions for ibuprofen.

The company was in such sorry financial straights in 1985 that it borrowed funds just to pay the staff.

Its largest selling products for 1986 include some of the old familiar names, such as Salazopyrin and FPLC, a descendant of the separation systems, as well as Healon, the allergy test Phadebas RAST, and Intraocular lenses.

In 1987, the grandson of Upjohn's founder--Ray ("Ted") Parfet--left the company's presidency, and Theodore Cooper assumed control of Upjohn.

By 1988, it acquired companies in Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy.

By 1989, the patents on many of Upjohn's major products began to expire, and development of it most advantageous new products was far from immediate.

Then in 1990 Pharmacia entered into a major merger with Procordia, a Swedish food-and-drug company, and Provenda, also a food company.

Some European countries, notably Great Britain, even barred the drug's sale around 1991.

The year 1992 proved difficult for Upjohn as well.

Ekberg continued seeking out acquisition properties for Pharmacia, including Italy's Farmitalia Carlo Erba in 1993, until the company ranked third among pharmaceutical companies worldwide.

By 1995, Pharmacia's position dropped to the ninth largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

In 1996, the company issued the first public stock offering for one of its subsidiaries, Biacore International AB. In the transaction, Pharmacia & Upjohn sold nearly 60 percent of its share of the company.

In response to these challenges, Pharmacia & Upjohn appointed Fred Hassan as the new chief executive in 1997.

In 1998, Pharmacia & Upjohn relocated its global headquarters from the United Kingdom to the United States.

In April 2000, Pharmacia & Upjohn completed a merger with Monsanto and Searle creating Pharmacia, a dynamic new competitor in the pharmaceutical industry.

Pfizer Inc and Pharmacia Corporation began operating as a unified company on April 16, 2003, forging one of the world's fastest-growing and most valuable companies.

GE Healthcare that announces that personalized medicine is its business focus (Sv.D. Special Section on Biotech, 13 May 2004).