This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Sterling Drug is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
Sterling Drug was a global pharmaceutical company based in the United States, later known as Sterling-Winthrop, Inc., whose primary product lines included diagnostic imaging agents, hormonal products, cardiovascular products, analgesics, antihistamines and muscle relaxants.
It was started in 1901 (then called Neuralgyline Co.) in Wheeling, West Virginia, by Albert H. Diebold and William E. Weiss, a pharmacist.[1] In 1918, at the end of World War I, the U.S. assets of the German company now called Bayer AG were sold to Sterling for US$5.3 million (directed under the Alien Property Custodian Act). At the time Sterling, like many other pharmaceutical manufactures, was in the dye business, and sold that division for $2.5 million in 1919 to the Grasselli Chemical Company (based in Linden, New Jersey), which employed many former Bayer personnel.[2] An October 1920 agreement between Sterling and the German Bayer (called "Farbenfabriken Bayer in Leverkusen" under the direction of Carl Duisberg of I.G. Farbenindustrie) allowed Sterling to sell aspirin under the Bayer name. In return, Bayer was allowed back into its old Latin-American markets. In 1922, 50% of Sterling's new holding company, Winthrop, was given to the German Bayer company, while the American Bayer was allowed to continue using the Bayer name.[3] In 1923 Sterling purchased a 1/4 interest in The Centaur Company, manufacturers of Charles Henry Fletcher's, Fletcher's Castoria (New York Times, Feb 9, 1923, Page 24, Col 1).
In 1974, Sterling opened a manufacturing plant in McPherson, Kansas. The various companies which would eventually acquire Sterling chose to keep the factory open. In 1997, Abbott Laboratories agreed to buy the McPherson plant from Sanofi for $200 million and retain the rights to manufacture injectable drugs manufactured at the facility. In 2006 Abbott Laboratories chose to spin off its hospital products division and formed a new company, Hospira. Hospira added 174 jobs to the McPherson area in 2006.
In 1988, Sterling was acquired by Eastman Kodak for $5.1 billion. In 1993, Eastman Kodak/Sterling Winthrop made a partnership with French pharmaceutical company Elf Sanofi (now known as Sanofi Aventis). In 1994, Sanofi acquired the prescription drug operations of Sterling Winthrop from Eastman Kodak for US$1.675 billion, and then it sold the diagnostic-imaging division a week later to Hafslund Nycomed AS, a Norwegian company, for US$450 million.[4] Kodak then completely owned the over-the-counter drug business, including Bayer Aspirin and the U.S. rights to the Bayer name and trademarks, and sold them to SmithKline Beecham for US$1 billion, who then sold it back to Bayer AG in 1994 for US$1 billion.[5][6] Spinoffs from the sale of Sterling include Starwin Products, created in 1987 from Sterling’s original branch in Ghana.
Footnotes
- ^ "Chapter 26. Bayer (Pharmaceuticals)". Textbook of Chemistry, 1913. Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
- ^ "General Aniline Linden, New Jersey". Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
- ^ "Foreigh Trade Strategies of I.G. Farben after World War I" (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
- ^ "Kodak plans to sell two health care products divisions, focus on imaging - Eastman Kodak Co". Health Industry Today. Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
- ^ "Faculty, COrnell University The Johnson School". Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
- ^ "Aspirin". Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
Further reading
Ambruster, H. W. (1947). Treason’s Peace: German Dyes and American Dupes, The Beechhurst Press, New York.
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 23 July 2008, at 16:47.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Sterling Drug".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.