Parke-Davis

In 1862 Dr. Samuel Duffield founded a small firm that sold compounded medicinal preparations to pharmacists.

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

Merck Company

E. Merck & Son was founded as a chemical manufacturer in Germany by an apothecary named Jacob Freidrich Merck. In 1654, Merck purchased the Angel Pharmacy, located near Schiller Platz in Darmstadt, Germany and began trading fine chemicals.

Most popular was laudanum, an alcoholic solution of opium, which was in every physician’s medicine chest and used as a ‘panacea’ for many illnesses.

Merck established a new factory and began drug production in 1827. The first product made at Merck’s new factory was morphine. Codeine production began in 1832, followed by quinine production in 1833.

The company established in United States in 1891 under the direction of George Merck.  Merck discovers, develops, manufactures and markets vaccines and medicines in more than 20 therapeutics categories.

Since the 1930s, the company’s R&D had acquired a substantial reputation for cutting edge research in organic chemistry.

Merck merged in 1953 with Sharp & Dohme, a pharmaceutical company with major capabilities in marketing to US physicians and hospitals. This merger enabled Merck to acquire an even larger market share in the United States and abroad.

A merger with Schering-Plough increased the number of employees from 73,000 in 2008 to the 100,000 figure at the end of 2009.

Nowadays, the original E. Merck & CO. still exists in Darmstadt but with the name Merck KGaA.

However, in terms of capital, influence and fame, Merck KGaA is decisively dwarfed by Merck & Co., formerly a unit of the German based E. Merck and now an independent company.
Merck Company

History of Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company of Indianapolis has been founded by Col Eli Lilly in 1876. The leading maker of prescription drugs is well known for its popular Prozac antidepressant drug.

Colonel Lilly a 38 year old pharmaceutical chemist and veteran of the US Civil War, founded the company with aim for improving the quality of already existing drugs.

He saw firsthand the blood causalities of war and was frustrated by the poorly prepared and often ineffective medicines of his day.

He started the company with total capital of $1,400 and four employees, including his 14 year old son, Josiah.

He invented a process for coating pills with gelatin. The company was one of the pioneers in the development of hard capsules during the 20th century. The other one was Parke, Davis and Company. 

Colonel Lilly sought to make medicine according to recognized scientific criteria: precise formulation, accurate compounding, standardization by assay, full disclosure of ingredients on the label and honest claims.

Eli Lilly in 1963 was the first company successfully to manufacture and sell Lok-Caps capsules. It became the industry standard later because it can be handled in automatic filling and packaging machines.

Eli Lilly producing the first commercially available insulin product in 1923, shortly after the substance has been isolated by Frederick Grant Banting and Charles Best.

Prozac, the world’s top selling antidepressant was introduced in 1988 and rapidly became one of the company’s top selling drugs.
History of Eli Lilly and Company

History of Pepsi Cola

History of Pepsi Cola
Summer 1898, the weather was hot and humid. In New Bern, North Carolina pharmacist named Caleb Bradham began experimenting with combinations of spices, juices, and syrups trying to create a refreshing new drink to serve his customers. He invented the beverage known around the world as Pepsi-Cola.

His creation, a unique mixture of kola nut extract, vanilla and rare oils, became so popular his customers named it "Brad's Drink." Caleb decided to rename it "Pepsi-Cola," and advertised his new soft drink. People responded, and sales of Pepsi-Cola started to grow, convincing him that he should form a company to market the new beverage. In 1902, he launched the Pepsi-Cola Company in the back room of his pharmacy, and applied to the U.S. Patent Office for a trademark.

At first, he mixed the syrup himself and sold it exclusively through soda fountains. But soon Caleb recognized that a greater opportunity existed to bottle Pepsi so that people could drink it anywhere. The business began to grow, and on June 16, 1903, "Pepsi-Cola" was officially registered with the U.S. Patent Office. That year, Caleb sold 7,968 gallons of syrup, using the theme line "Exhilarating, Invigorating, Aids Digestion." He also began awarding franchises to bottle Pepsi to independent investors, whose number grew from just two in 1905, in the cities of Charlotte and Durham, North Carolina, to 15 the following year, and 40 by 1907. By the end of 1910, there were Pepsi-Cola franchises in 24 states.

Building a strong franchise system was one of Caleb's greatest achievements. Local Pepsi-Cola bottlers, entrepreneurial in spirit and dedicated to the product's success, provided a sturdy foundation. They were the cornerstone of the Pepsi-Cola enterprise. By 1907, the new company was selling more than 100,000 gallons of syrup per year.

Growth was phenomenal, and in 1909 Caleb erected a headquarters so spectacular that the town of New Bern pictured it on a postcard. The previous year, Pepsi had been one of the first companies in the United States to switch from horse-drawn transport to motor vehicles, and Caleb's business expertise captured widespread attention.

Pepsi-Cola enjoyed 17 unbroken years of success. Caleb now promoted Pepsi sales with the slogan, "Drink Pepsi-Cola. It will satisfy you." Then came World War I, and the cost of doing business increased drastically. Sugar prices see sawed between record highs and disastrous lows, and so did the price of producing Pepsi-Cola.

Caleb was forced into a series of business gambles just to survive, until finally, after three exhausting years, his luck ran out and he was bankrupted. By 1921, only two plants remained open. It wasn't until a successful candy manufacturer, Charles G. Guth, appeared on the scene that the future of Pepsi-Cola was assured. Guth was president of Loft Incorporated, a large chain of candy stores and soda fountains along the eastern seaboard. He saw Pepsi-Cola as an opportunity to discontinue an unsatisfactory business relationship with the Coca-Cola Company, and at the same time to add an attractive drawing card to Loft's soda fountains. He was right.

After five owners and 15 unprofitable years, Pepsi-Cola was once again a thriving national brand. One oddity of the time, for a number of years, all of Pepsi-Cola's sales were actually administered from a Baltimore building apparently owned by Coca-Cola, and named for its president.

Within two years, Pepsi would earn $1 million for its new owner. With the resurgence came new confidence, a rarity in those days because the nation was in the early stages of a severe economic decline that came to be known as the Great Depression.
History of Pepsi Cola