In 1866 Hervey Coke Parke partnered with Duffield, forming pharmaceutical manufacturing company Duffield, Parke & Company. The firm of Duffield, Parke & Company remained small an unimportant during its first years of operation.
Although it served Detroit and the surrounding region, it presented no competition to manufacturers in New York and Philadelphia, the centers of the pharmaceutical industry.
A few years later A. F Jennings bought out Duffield, leading to the firm Parke, Jennings & Company. When Jennings retired in 1871, George S. Davis joined with Parke to form Parke, Davis & Company.
It was Davis who recognized most clearly that the capacity of the industry might be turned not only to the production of those products that physician demanded, but also to the development of their own drug products, sparking medical interest through the publication of variable research results.
The firm embraced publishing, producing the Bulletin of Pharmacy, Medical Age, New Preparations, and the Therapeutic Gazette – in the 1880s – was promotional treatment by Parke, Davis.
Parke-Davis quickly recognized the importance of endocrine products, beginning to sell desiccated thyroid preparations as early as 1893 and adrenal gland preparations in 1895.
By the mid-20th century Parke-Davis was among the largest of global pharmaceutical enterprises.
In 1970 Parke-Davis was acquired by Warner Lambert, which in turn was bought by Pfizer in 2000.
Parke-Davis
