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IT S NOT OFTEN THAT SOMEONE CAN further a company's ambitions while advancing a more personal project at the same time. But if Paul Rubin is successful in commercializing the asthma drug zileuton, he will have managed to accomplish both of these goals. Rubin is president and chief executive officer of Critical Therapeutics Inc.(CTI), a small biopharmaceutical company in Lexington, Mass. And in his dual quest, he is leveraging two strengths from his past: an intimate knowledge of zileuton and a good working experience with the pharmaceutical services firm Rhodia Pharma Solutions. From 1987 until 1993, Rubin, a medical doctor, was in charge of a group at Abbott Laboratories responsible for the development of zileuton. When the drug was approved in 1996 as Zyflo, it became the only Food & Drug Administration-approved product that works by blocking the activity of 5-lipoxygenase, the main enzyme responsible for the formation of a family ...

THE BUSINESS OF CUSTOM PHARmaceutical chemical manufacturing has come into its own in recent years because many pharmaceutical companies are focusing their efforts on the research, development, and marketing of new drugs, leaving the unglamorous step of production to third-party chemical firms happy to do the job. Yet a handful of drug companies are bucking the trend. Not only do these firms continue to manufacture the bulk of their own products, they are successfully competing in the $8 billion-per-year contract manufacturing arena against the growing number of "pure play" chemical companies that want a slice of what for them is a high-margin market. Merck KGaA, Aventis, Pharmacia, Boehringer Ingelheim, Abbott Laboratories, Schering AG, and a few other drug-makers are active participants in the contract manufacturing market. Through an emphasis on quality manufacturing and regulatory expertise, they manage to overcome the perception that they are high-priced providers out merely to fill unused capacity i...

In 1993 and early 1994, the U.S. chemical industry spawned a few new companies in 1993 and early 1994, but none seems so happy to step out from its parent's shadow as Cytec Industries. Companies such as Eastman Chemical, Praxair, and Albemarle have recently spun out of Eastman Kodak, Union Carbide, and Ethyl, respectively. They did so on good terms and with every confidence that their parent company had provided them the wherewithal for survival. Cytec did not exactly leave American Cyanamid's fold on bad terms last Dec. 17, but it has tried to make a more complete break from its parent than other chemical company spin-offs. Darryl D. Fry, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Cytec, says what he is doing is "consciously creating a true strategic and cultural discontinuity" with Cyanamid. Under Cyanamid, chemicals "were priority three," says Fry, 54, who had been with the company for 32 years. "Cyanamid decided it ...

BASF says it plans to sell its custom synthesis business and part of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) business to Siegfried Holding, the Swiss parent company of the drug chemical producer Siegfried. The deal, involving manufacturing sites in Germany, Switzerland, and France, will affect about 850 employees. Siegfried will pay BASF $306 million. The acquisition will increase Siegfried’s sales by roughly 50% to $955 million. BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, says it wants to focus its API and services operations within its nutrition and health division, and will retain generic API businesses only where it holds a leading market position. These include ibuprofen, omega-3 fatty acids, and polyethylene glycol. APIs that will go to Siegfried include ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, and caffeine. The divestiture will follow BASF’s sale of its Knoll Pharmaceuticals business to Abbott Laboratories, now Abbott, for $6.9 billion, in 2000, and its acquisition of Swiss pharmaceutical contract manufactu...

A potential pain drug synthesized by scientists at Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, 111., knocks out pain more effectively than morphine. In animal studies, the compound—ABT-594—doesn't cause with...

Marc Beer recognized an opportunity when he joined Cambridge, Mass.-based Aegerion Pharmaceuticals as chief executive officer in 2010. The prospect was called lomitapide. First developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, the drug had failed as a general-purpose cholesterol treatment in Phase I clinical trials. Aegerion, which acquired rights to the molecule in 2007, wasn’t faring much better in its attempt to revive it as a drug for patients who can’t tolerate the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins. Beer, however, envisioned using it as a therapy for homo­zygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), a rare genetic disease that affects the liver and often causes heart failure. Beer was looking for a challenge. A former executive at Abbott Laboratories and Genzyme, Beer had formed a stem cell research firm, ViaCell, and sold it in 2007. He then took three years off after his wife’s death because of a pulmonary embolism. Offered the CEO job at Aegerion, ...

The National Institutes of Health plans to respond before the end of the month to another petition asking the agency to use a little-known provision in a federal law to override patents held by Abbott Laboratories and allow generic production of Norvir (ritonavir), a protease inhibitor that helps suppress HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. NIH rejected a similar request in 2004. Norvir received federal funding in the early stages of its development. The drug now costs much more in the U.S. than in Canada, Europe, and other countries with comparable income levels. A survey conducted this past August found that prices charged in eight high-income countries for a single 100-mg tablet or capsule of Norvir ranged from $1.02 to $2.16, compared with the average wholesale price of $10.29 in the U.S. Consequently, a coalition of consumer and medical groups has petitioned NIH to exercise a legal option known as ...

If any women are having a good experience in science, surely they should include the winners of prestigious post-doctoral fellowships awarded by the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, or the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. These elite scientists presumably should be immune to discrimination—they might be expected to have bypassed early barriers to career advancement and, given the push of a high-status award, be impervious to the "glass ceilings" that hinder advancement later on. Not so, according to Gerhard Sonnert and Gerald Holton in "Gender Differences in Science Careers: The Project Access Study," a monograph that presents the conclusions of Harvard University's research project on scientists' career paths. Sonnert, a science sociologist at Harvard, and Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and a professor of science history at the university, compiled a large database of information—699 questionnaires and 200 in-depth interviews—to track the career paths of men a...

Dow Corning, the silicones-producing joint venture of Dow Chemical and Corning, has spent millions of dollars defending itself against consumer complaints that its silicone breast implants made women ill. Faced with 19,000 individual suits, and a possible increase in its $2 billion contribution to the $4 billion global breast implant settlement, Dow Corning sought bankruptcy protection last month. Since the late 1970s, Dow Chemical subsidiary Marion Merrell Dow has spent $80 million to defend itself against charges that its antinausea drug for pregnant women, Bendectin, caused birth defects. More recently, DuPont has spent $40 million to defend itself from charges leveled against polytetrafluoroethylene, which the company sells under the Teflon brand name. Medical device manufacturers used Teflon in temporomandibular jaw implants that were intended to alleviate a painful jaw condition. Some recipients charged the deterioration of the implants containing Teflon contributed to further suffering for implant ...

IN 2004, when suppliers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) were several years into a prolonged slump, the management of a generic API plant operated by BASF in Cramlington, England, sensed it was the right time to launch a new fine chemicals business. The group acquired the site through a management buyout and formed Aesica. By 2006, the contract API sector had started to rebound, fueled in part by drug companies closing or selling their manufacturing plants and shifting production to third-party suppliers. Aesica took advantage of this trend and acquired two other sites in England—an API plant from Merck & Co. and an API and formulation facility from Abbott Laboratories. Other pharmaceutical chemical companies have acquired unwanted big pharma API plants, but Aesica is the first contract manufacturer built solely out of discarded drug industry assets. Now it has set out on a potentially more difficult task: creating the relationships with major drug companies ...

IN 1988, ABBOTT LABORATORIES REceived a National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group for AIDS grant, administered by the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. The $3.5 million, five-year grant supported Abbott scientists in the discovery of the protease inhibitor ritonavir, which was further developed and marketed by Abbott as Norvir. This successful drug, which was introduced in 1996, was thrust into the spotlight when Abbott raised its price in the US. by 400% last December. In many ways, the case of Norvir is a good example of how technology developed with federal funds can be effectively transferred into the commercial sector where it can be developed into a product that benefits countless people. This outcome is, in fact, the goal of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980—the legislation that governs the transfer of federally funded research from the lab to the marketplace. The Norvir case, however, has ...

The atmosphere at the 30th annual J. P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last week was charged with enthusiasm in the wake of deals indicating that drug companies are prepared to invest in innovative science. Biotech and emerging drug companies, armed with clinical data on lead compounds, came to court big pharma partners. Even the venture capital firms on hand seemed ready to get back in the game. Attendees pointed to Gilead Sciences’ $11 billion acquisition of Pharmasset, announced in late 2011, as an indication that drug companies are willing to place big bets on promising compounds in competitive therapeutic areas. Pharmasset has a potential blockbuster treatment for hepatitis C virus in late-stage development. This view was supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb’s $2.5 billion deal to buy hepatitis C specialist Inhibitex, which was announced on the day before the conference (see page 18). And Abbott Laboratories’ recent partnership with Reata ...

AVANTOR PERFORMANCE Materials held a ceremony last month to mark the opening of its technical support center in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The facility will improve the company’s position in a country that is one of the world’s top producers of semiconductors. The technical center—employing 12 people and representing a $6 million investment—is not a major one. But over time, the firm will manufacture its products in Taiwan as well as source its raw materials locally, Jean-Marc Gilson, Avantor’s chief executive officer, said at the event. Currently, the facility features a clean room and a pilot production line that enables customers to test Avantor materials without having to idle their own equipment for that purpose. Avantor is the new name for Mallinckrodt Baker, a 140-year-old U.S.-based supplier of ultrapure chemicals used in laboratories, in pharmaceutical production, and in the food and beverage and electronics industries. The company changed its name after it was acquired by the ...

BELGIAN CHEMICAL MAKER Solvay has made a cash tender offer to buy France’s Rhodia for $4.8 billion, a move that will accelerate Solvay’s expansion into fast-growing developing markets and nearly double its global sales. The acquisition of Rhodia will create “a major global chemicals platform under the banner of Solvay,” CEO Christian Jourquin says. In addition, the deal will allow Solvay to deploy cash it has been sitting on since selling its pharmaceuticals business to Abbott Laboratories for $7.6 billion more than a year ago. Coming on the heels of Clariant’s February agreement to buy Sud-Chemie for $2.6 billion (C&EN, Feb. 21, page 10), the purchase will continue consolidation in the European chemical industry. Rhodia’s board of directors has approved the combination, which would have ranked Solvay as the world’s 17th-largest chemical company in C&EN’s most recent Global Top 50 survey. The new firm will have $17 billion in annual sales, 40% of which ...

STEVEN J. DEMETRIOU IS A MAN with a mission. As president and chief executive officer of Noveon, the 42-year-old executive is charged with making the company, the former BFGoodrich Performance Materials business, into a successful stand-alone operation focused entirely on specialty chemicals. His is the chance of a lifetime. Demetriou, a chemical engineer from Tufts University, joined Noveon in March and says he relishes the entrepreneurial challenge. He had been president of IMC Global's crop nutrient division when Noveon's new owners sought him out to restructure the hodgepodge of specialty chemicals businesses they bought in February He spent his first 17 years in business at Exxon Chemical and subsequently held senior management positions at American Cyanamid spin-off Cytec Industries. His goal: make Noveon so attractive that the private investors who bought it can cash out—at a hefty premium to the $1.4 billion they paid for the company—through a sale to a ...

SEEKING TO ACCELERATE the search for Alzheimer’s disease cures, big pharma firms are drawing back the curtain on years’ worth of patient data from clinical trials. The Coalition Against Major Diseases, a consortium that links drug companies, research foundations, patient-advocacy groups, and advisers from U.S. and European regulatory agencies, has established a publicly available database with information on more than 4,000 Alzheimer’s disease patients from 11 clinical trials. Companies contributing data include AstraZeneca, Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmith-Kline, Novartis, Pfizer, and Sanofi-Aventis. They are expected to eventually add data about patients with other brain diseases such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s. “Scientists from around the world will be able to analyze this new combined data from pharmaceutical companies, add their own data, and consequently better understand the course of these diseases,” says Raymond Woosley, CEO of Critical Path Institute, a nonprofit funded by...

Abbott Laboratories has beat out Biogen Idec in the bid for Facet Biotech, a Cambridge, Mass.-based antibody development firm with a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug, daclizumab, about to enter Phase III studies. Abbott will pay $27.00 per share, valuing Facet at $450 million after taking into account its cash holdings of $272 million. Biogen and Facet have a partnership to develop daclizumab, which Biogen clearly wanted to bring into its fold. It had been gunning for Facet since August, when it made an unsolicited offer to buy the biotech firm for $15.00 per share. When Facet rebuffed the bid as undervaluing the company, Biogen came back with an even lower offer that, unsurprisingly, was also rejected. In December, Biogen upped its bid to $17.50 per share and tried to convince shareholders to offer their shares for sale. Facet fended off the attack by allowing the Baupost Group, a Boston-based investment firm, to increase its ...

Bucking an industry trend toward diversification, Bristol-Myers Squibb is splitting off its Mead Johnson Nutrition business as an independent company so it can focus on its own biopharmaceutical operations. After holding an initial public offering (IPO) of Mead stock in February, Bristol-Myers is looking to liquidate its ownership stake entirely. “Now is the right time to move forward with a split-off, given the excellent performance of Mead Johnson since the IPO earlier this year and our confidence in the current and future performance of our biopharmaceuticals business,” Bristol-Myers CEO James M. Cornelius said when he announced the plan last week. “With a successful execution of this split-off, we fully consider ourselves a biopharma company.” Bristol-Myers owns 170 million shares, or 83%, of the infant-formula maker. It is giving its shareholders the opportunity to exchange some, none, or all of their Bristol-Myers shares for shares of Mead. Along with disposing of the Mead stock, the ...

SOLVAY IS SELLING its pharmaceutical business to Abbott Laboratories for $7.6 billion. Calling the move the best option to secure growth for both its pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical sides, Brussels-based Solvay will refocus its efforts on chemicals and plastics. In deciding to shed its drug operations, Solvay is following the lead of several other once-diversified companies, including AkzoNobel, Altana, and BASF. By tying up financial resources in pharmaceuticals, hybrid companies limit their ability to increase size and scale in chemicals, says Britta Holt, an analyst with London-based Fitch Ratings. Meanwhile, their drug operations typically suffer from a lack of critical mass in R&D and sales compared with stand-alone competitors. “The proceeds from the divestment will be reinvested in external and organic growth with a sharp focus on long-term value creation,” said Solvay CEO Christian Jourquin in announcing the deal. He highlighted geographical expansion and sustainable products. After the deal ...

NEXT MONTH, a convoy of 21 tractor-trailers will unload the world’s fastest computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Named “Roadrunner” for New Mexico’s state bird, the supercomputer was created through a collaboration between LANL and IBM, which built and tested the unit at its Poughkeepsie, N.Y., plant. Roadrunner, the Department of Energy announced June 9, is the first computer to achieve a petaflop or 1,000 trillion operations per second of sustained performance. “It’s a speed demon,” says Thomas P. D’Agostino, administrator of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, adding that it is twice as fast as the next quickest supercomputer, which is located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Its primary purpose, he notes, is to certify the reliability of the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads without conducting underground nuclear explosions. Along with speed, Roadrunner is efficient, using but half the electricity of other supercomputers. Its speed and efficiency are due to ...

Drug companies continue to shed research, sales, and manufacturing jobs as part of cost-cutting and restructuring efforts. Abbott Laboratories has cut about 200 positions, primarily scientists working at its Lake County, Ill., facility, as it reshapes its drug discovery strategy to concentrate on fewer disease areas, according to a spokesman. The company has discontinued its metabolic diseases drug discovery program and will narrow in on certain areas of its remaining programs in immunology, infection, neuroscience and pain, and oncology. Separately, Abbott is also shedding several hundred primary-care sales positions in the U.S. to eliminate overlap with the sales force of Kos Pharmaceuticals, which Abbott acquired in December. Meanwhile, more details have emerged about the 3,000 jobs that AstraZeneca expects to cut over the next three years as it overhauls its global manufacturing network. About 850 jobs will be lost at its Swedish production facilities, in addition to the 450 positions that were elimin...

ABBOTT LABORATORIES has agreed to acquire the specialty drugmaker Kos Pharmaceuticals for $3.7 billion. Kos, based in Cranbury, N.J., sells products designed to manage levels of "good" and "bad" cholesterol. Abbott CEO Miles D. White says the purchase will expand his firm's presence in the field known as lipid management, a $20 billion-per-year market dominated by Pfizer's statin drug Lipitor. Kos's two main products are Niaspan and Advicor. Niaspan, launched in 1997, is an extended-release form of the vitamin niacin, which raises levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or good cholesterol. Four-yearold Advicor combines Niaspan with lovastatin, the first in the statin class of drugs, which lower low-density lipoprotein, or bad cholesterol. These and other products brought in sales last year of $752 million, a 51% increase over 2004 sales. Kos's drug pipeline holds a new Niaspan formula, now under FDA review, that reduces the facial flushing associated with niacin. Also ...

ABBOTT LABORATORIES Defended the recent 400% price increase for its AIDS drug Norvir (ritonavir) before a government panel last week in an effort to forestall the issuance of licenses for generic versions of the drug under the 1980 Bayh-DoleAct. Essential Inventions, a consumer advocacy group, has petitioned the Department ofHealth & Human Services to invoke the law, which ensures public access to government-funded inventions. Abbott had received a $3.5 million NIH grant for the development of Norvir. The drug, with 2003 sales of $95 million, is scheduled to come off patent in 2014. Citing the expense of drug discovery and Norvir's low cost compared with other treatments,Abbott upped the price of a 100-mg dose from $1.71 per day to $8.57 in December, sparking protest from AIDS activists. Jeffrey M. Leiden, president of Abbott's pharmaceutical products group, told an NIH committee last week that the price hike does not affect government ...

The appearance of mad-cow-diseasetainted beef in the U.S. food supply is spurring interest in commercially available diagnostics. Today in the U.S., only 20,000 out of 35 million cattle butchered annually are tested for the disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. However, observers expect increased use of tests to detect it in infected animals as a means of preventing its transmission to the human population. Bio-Rad Laboratories, for instance, has millions of dollars in sales of such tests in Europe and Japan. Though the firm does not have approval to sell the tests in the U.S., investors anticipate the need and bid its shares up 20% to $59.82 on the day after the Department of Agriculture revealed the appearance of the disease in Washington state. Other firms with tests approved in Europe include Abbott Laboratories, InPro Biotechnology, and Switzerland-based Prionics. Strategic Diagnostics has a test that detects meat and bone ...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has given final approval to Hoechst's $7.1 billion purchase of pharmaceutical maker Marion Merrell Dow after the German chemical giant agreed to meet antitrust concerns by divesting drugs in four classes where the two firms overlap in products. The worldwide pharmaceutical operations of Hoechst and Marion Merrell Dow, a Kansas City, Mo.-based firm in which Dow Chemical held a majority stake, will be merged to form Hoechst Marion Roussel. The new company will have annual sales of more than $10 billion, placing it among the five largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The acquisition received conditional FTC approval in June, pending assessment of its "competitive impact" (C&EN, July 3, page 8). Some of the drugs FTC has ordered divested as a result of that assessment are already on the market, others are still in the development stage. Hoechst Roussel Pharma, Hoechst's U.S.-based drug operation, had already relinquished its rights to ...

Germany's Hoechst plans to eliminate 8,000 jobs by the end of 1997 as part of a restructuring of its worldwide pharmaceutical operations, which will soon include Kansas City, Mo.-based Marion Merrell Dow (MMD). The merger will create a drug company with annual sales of more than $9.4 billion, ranking it among the five largest firms worldwide. The nearly 20% reduction in the companies' combined worldwide pharmaceutical workforce could be taken from the 9,500 employees at MMD or from the 33,500 workers employed in Hoechst's pharmaceutical operations. MMD will eventually become part of Hoechst's subsidiary Hoechst Roussel Pharma. Hoechst indicates that 1,400 positions in Germany will be eliminated but gives no specifics on the types of positions that will be dropped. It also declines to indicate where the remaining 6,600 jobs will be eliminated. However, the integration of MMD will surely present overlapping operations that likely will be trimmed. Employee reductions are possible within the companies' ...

Continuing a downsizing trend in the chemical industry, plans to cut more jobs were announced last week by two chemically related companies. As part of its consolidation of operations following its November 1994 acquisition of American Cyanamid, American Home Products (AHP) says it will eliminate another 4,000 jobs worldwide, 5.2% of its total workforce. And Monsanto will continue its cost-paring and restructuring efforts by cutting 200 corporate staff positions. Immediately after acquiring Cyanamid, AHP eliminated 300 Cyanamid corporate and administrative positions. So far, AHP has closed one facility, a plant that makes sutures in France, because of the acquisition and consolidation. And in mid-1994, before the acquisition, AHP announced 4,300 job cuts under a restructuring program. The reductions are symptomatic oi consolidations in the health care industry. For example, Roche Group, based in Basel, cut 5,000 positions after its merger with Syntex Corp. in October 1994. AHP says the new move is ...

Consolidation of the pharmaceutical industry continues to gather steam as two newly announced mergers and the possible divestment of a large drug operation lead to fewer, but larger, players in the field. In the largest of last week's deals, U.K.-based SmithKline Beecham made a winning $2.93 billion cash bid for the remainder of Eastman Kodak's Sterling Winthrop consumer health products subsidiary. Kodak's previous sale of Sterling's prescription pharmaceutical business to France's Sanofi for $1.68 billion (C&EN, June 27, page 30) awaits approval by regulatory bodies. Also last week, generic drugmaker Ivax Corp., based in Miami, announced it will acquire generic drug producer Zenith Laboratories, based in Northvale, N.J., in a stock swap worth about $594 million. And Kansas City, Mo.- based Marion Merrell Dow and its 72% owner, Dow Chemical, separately stated that each had engaged an investment bank to explore "strategic alternatives," such as potential acquisitions, joint-marketing arrangements, or busin...

JOHNSON & JOHNSON IS THE latest major drug firm-along with Eli Lilly, Abbott Laboratories, and Schering-Plough—to come under regulatory scrutiny. FDA is investigating allegations of falsified documents at J&J's Ortho Biologics plant in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the agency and French health authorities representing the European Union have been looking into cases of pure red blood cell aplasia (PRCA) in patients using J&J's erythropoietin (EPO) product, Eprex, which stimulates production of red blood cells. J&J makes Eprex for non-U.S. markets at its Puerto Rico facility. However, the company says its own investigation confirms that "the integrity of our product has never been compromised and there is no connection between the allegations and the occurrence of PRCA." The probes started after a former Ortho Biologics employee sued J&J in March 2000, claiming in part that his supervisors directed him to falsify documents. The employee was a utilities worker with no manufacturing responsibilities. He was ...

Since he retired as president of Arco Chemical two years ago, Harold A. Sorgenti, 59, has pursued a dream: to build, own, and operate his own company. Together with former Combustion Engineering president Fred P. Rullo, 53, he has formed Freedom Group Partnership, an acquisitive Philadelphia-based organization dedicated to buying sows' ears and turning them into silk purses. The two partners started with the purchase of American Cyanamid's textile chemicals operations (with approximately $75 million in revenues) in Charlotte, N.C., in May 1992 for an undisclosed sum. They advanced toward their goal— to assemble a specialty chemicals maker, Freedom Chemicals—with the purchase of Hilton Davis Co. (with more than $100 million in sales) in September of this year. Cincinnati-based Hilton Davis, a maker of colorants, dyes, and specialty intermediates, was purchased from investor Philip E. Kamins. Freedom Chemicals is now a specialty chemicals operation with about $200 million in annual sales, six operating site...

MILLENNIUM PHARMACEUticals and Abbott Laboratories are combining their efforts in obesity and diabetes R&D to create a comprehensive drug discovery, development, and commercialization alliance. The...

The Food & Drug Administration wants to ban two poultry antibiotics, members of a family of drugs also used in humans, saying their use increases the risk that humans will become infected with resistant bacteria. This is the first time FDA has proposed banning any antibiotic because of bacterial resistance. It is also the first time FDA has proposed withdrawing approval for an antibiotic used in the livestock industry. The two antibiotics are fluoroquinolones: enrofloxacin made by Bayer Corp. and sarafloxacin made by Abbott Laboratories. Similar fluoroquinolones used in humans, FDA says, are considered "one of the most valuable antimicrobial drug classes because of their spectrum of activity, safety, and ease of administration" when they work. But some strains of bacteria are now resistant to the drugs. Abbott Laboratories says it will withdraw sarafloxacin from the market immediately. Bayer is considering whether to request a hearing to contest the ban on enrofloxacin. ...

Monsanto has agreed to sell its bulk sweetener ingredient business, including the NutraSweet brand, to J.W. Childs Equity Partners II, a Boston-based private firm, for $440 million in cash. The move ends Monsanto's decades-old campaign to manufacture and sell consumer and bulk food ingredients. Monsanto also is selling its stake in two European sweetener joint ventures—NutraSweet A.G. and Euro-Aspartame S.A.—for $67 million in cash to joint-venture partner Ajinomoto Co., Tokyo. Ajinomoto is one of Japan's largest producers of food products, including seasonings. Closings of the J.W. Childs and Ajinomoto sales will occur in parallel. "The global sweetener ingredient business has a history of innovation and consistent business performance," says Hendrik A. Verfaillie, Monsanto's president and chief operating officer. 'We're pleased the business and its people will have the opportunity to enhance the business in focused, stand-alone entities." In July 1999, Monsanto announced a restructuring program that inc...

BASF has taken another significant step to boost its agricultural products portfolio. Two weeks ago, BASF committed $700 million to ag biotech R&D over the next 10 years. Last week, the company said it would spend five times as much, or $3.8 billion, to boost its traditional crop protection business through the purchase of American Home Products' (AHP) American Cyanamid unit. The purchase, expected to close July 1 following regulatory approvals, will engender a business with $3.6 billion in annual sales of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, almost doubling the size of BASFs annual crop protection sales of $1.9 billion. It will make BASF the fourth largest crop protection company worldwide after number-one Syngenta—the proposed combination of Novartis' and AstraZeneca's crop protection portfolios—Monsanto, and Aventis. "We plan to take a leading role in the new agro-market through this acquisition and through our planned R&D investments" in plant biotechnology, says Eggert Voscherau ...

Dow Chemical's three-year-old contract manufacturing services (CMS) business has received the corporate green light on a strategy for becoming one of the major custom manufacturers of pharmaceutical, agricultural, and specialty chemicals. According to Sheldon Messing and Gwin Bompas, commercial development managers for CMS, the executive committee of Dow's board of directors recently approved CMS's plan for expansion in three key custom manufacturing sectors. Among the plan's targets, they say, is "severalfold" growth by the middle or latter part of the next decade. CMS's track record so far indicates that such a lofty goal may not be far-fetched. Executives anticipate that CMS sales this year will approach $200 million, more than double what they were when Dow assembled the business in late 1995. The announcement of the business' formation, Messing says, came soon after Dow sold its Marion Merrell Dow pharmaceutical arm to Germany's Hoechst in mid-1995. Dow had quietly performed contract manufacturing fo...

Last month George J. Sella Jr. received the 1990 Chemical Industry Medal at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of American Cyanamid ...

New details about the way a key anticancer drug interacts with its human target protein have been revealed though independent studies by two research groups. The studies could aid the structure-based design of agents with improved activity and lower toxicity and could lead to a better fundamental understanding of the drug's effects in the body. The drug, TNP-470, is an analog of the fungal natural product fumagillin. Both compounds fight cancer by curbing angiogenesis, the growth of the new blood vessels that tumors need to sustain themselves and spread. The agents act by inhibiting methionine aminopeptidase-2 (MetAP-2), an enzyme that plays a key role in protein synthesis. In 1992, TNP-470 became the first anti-angiogenesis drug to enter the clinic as an anticancer agent. It is currendy in Phase II trials sponsored by TAP Pharmaceuticals, Deerfield, Ill. However, it is toxic to some degree and breaks down quickly in the body, so drug researchers are interested ...

The consolidation of the animal health industry continued last week as Schering-Plough announced that it will buy Mallinckrodt's veterinary products business for $405 million in cash. After the purchase is combined with its own operations, the Madison, N.J.- based drug company says it will have the sixth largest animal health business—with about $650 million in annual sales—in a $10 billion global industry. The deal is an extremely good one for Schering-Plough, which is paying about $200 million less than the business1 s estimated "book" value. Mallinckrodt's business had $456 million in sales and operating earnings of $34.9 million in fiscal 1996, ending June 30. It is a good complementary fit in products and geographic markets, although Schering-Plough is evaluating possible overlaps and may close some of Mallinckrodts 15 plants and make cuts among its combined 2,650 employees. The rationale for the sale is explained by C. Ray Holman, Mallinckrodts chairman and chief ...

New claims that the sweetener aspartame—sold in the U.S. under the brand names NutraSweet and Equal—may cause brain cancer or other serious side effects are being vehemently denied by the Food & Drug Administration, NutraSweet Kelco Co., and many independent researchers. At a press conference last week in Washington, D.C., John W. Olney, a psychiatrist at Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis, said his examination of U.S. data shows that a 10% increase in brain cancer rates in the mid-1980s may be linked to introduction then of aspartame (L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester). However, an FDA spokesman counters that "analysis of the National Cancer Institute's public database on cancer incidence . . . does not support an association between the use of aspartame and increased incidence of brain tumors." Olney—who was deeply involved in efforts in the late 1970s to get FDA to rescind its 1974 approval of aspartame as a food additive (C&EN, ...

The end of the 20th century is witnessing an evolution in the pesticide industry. Traditional insect and weed control by chemicals will not totally disappear, but an inexorable shift is being made to biological controls and genetic engineering. The future of pesticides was the main topic at the spring conference of the American Crop Protection Association (ACPA) held recently in Washington, D.C. But speakers there offered no tales of new toxic chemicals or greater productivity. Their stories instead were of increased research on enzyme controls for insects and improved herbicideresistant crops. Biotechnology and new pest management strategies are where the industry is headed. At agricultural chemical companies, "the convergence of genetics, molecular modeling, biology, and biochemistry is creating opportunities," said Mark Atwood, president of the agricultural products research division of American Cyanamid, Wayne, N.J. "The differences between synthetic and natural products are becoming blurred." A major...

Hoechst Marion Roussel has spelled out details of its restructuring announced last July. Over the next two years, it will close several pharmaceutical research and manufacturing sites— leading to the elimination of about 8,000 jobs worldwide. The consolidation is part of the drugmaker's effort to integrate newly purchased Marion Merrell Dow and its 9,500 employees into Hoechst's pharmaceutical workforce of 33,500. About 1,400 of the 8,000 positions being eliminated are in Germany. Seeking to improve profitability and cut $800 million in operating expenses, Hoechst Marion Roussel will close major research sites in Cincinnati, Ohio; Gerenzano, Italy; and Strasbourg, France— all former Marion Merrell Dow facilities— and in Swindon, England. The company will retain four major Hoechst sites, each focusing on specific therapeutic research areas: cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, rheumatology, and immunology in Frankfurt; infectious and bone diseases in Paris; bone reconstruction in Tokyo; and oncolo...

W.R. Grace & Co.—embroiled over the past two months in resignations and accusations of improprieties—has named Albert J. Costello as its new president and chief executive officer, effective May 1. Costello, 59, succeeds J. P. Bolduc, who resigned March 2 after sexual harassment allegations were made against him (C&EN, April 10, page 10). Costello was CEO and chairman of the board at American Cyanamid from April 1993 to December 1994, when the company was acquired by American Home Products. Costello started as a chemist at Cyanamid in 1957. The new Grace CEO "has a pretty good record at running and growing businesses," says Andrew W. Cash, a chemicals analyst at PaineWebber, an investment banking firm in New York City. He has a good track record with agricultural chemicals and spinning off unprofitable businesses, Cash adds. "Expect him to pick up where J. P. Bolduc left off." Bolduc is credited with turning Grace around by unloading ...

Combining two of the most eminent names in laboratory reagent chemicals, Mallinckrodt Group has agreed to buv J. T. Baker from Procter & Gamble. Mallinckrodt will announce the purchase price when the deal closes. Baker, based in Phillipsburg, N.J., makes lab, industrial, and electronics chemicals—with sales in 1993 of about $I30 million. The 4,500 or so items in its lab products catalog include organic and inorganic chemicals, high-purity solvents, chromatography supplies, biological reagents, and safety equipment. The firm also sells about 1,000 chemicals in large volumes to the drug, biotechnology, electronics, ceramics, and rubber industries. Its electronics chemicals are high-purity, low-particulate acids, solvents, etchants, and photoresist developer agents used to fabricate semiconductor devices. Baker was founded by John Townsend Baker in 1904. In 1941, it was purchased by Vick Chemical Co., which later became a division of Richardson-Merrell. Procter & Gamble acquired Baker in 1985 as a result of ...

Johnson & Johnson and Eastman Kodak reached an agreement last week for J&J to acquire Kodak's clinical diagnostics business for $1.01 billion in cash. The move further diversifies J&J away from prescription pharmaceuticals and solidifies its position as the third largest player in the medical testing industry. U.S.-based Abbott Laboratories and Germany-based Boehringer Mannheim are first and second, respectively, in the clinical diagnostics market. Kodak's clinical diagnostics business includes clinical chemistry and immunodiagnostic analyzers used in hospitals and by doctors, with sales in 1993 of $535 million. If the Kodak acquisition is folded into J&J's Ortho Diagnostic Systems division, the expanded division's total annual sales will exceed $1 billion. "This acquisition fits perfectly our strategy objective of enhancing our business in diagnostic products," says Ralph S. Larsen, J&J's chairman and chief executive officer. Among these are blood virus screening and diagnostic products used in blood don...

American Home Products (AHP) and American Cyanamid have agreed on a friendly merger, ending two weeks of suspense set off by AHP's Aug. 2 takeover bid. AHP will pay $9.7 billion, or $101 a share, sweetening its original hostile bid of $8.5 billion, or $95 a share (C&EN, Aug. 8, page 8). AHP has extended its formal tender offer until Sept. 14. The deal must also pass government antitrust and competition requirements. Based on 1993 financial results, the combined companies would have sales of $12.6 billion. Cyanamid chairman and chief executive officer Albert J. Costello met Aug. 14 with AHP chairman and CEO John R. Stafford. The next day, AHP raised its offer from $95 a share to $100 a share. Deadline for acceptance was set at the close of business on Aug. 16, the day of a scheduled meeting of Cyanamid's board of directors. Cyanamid's board did not respond publicly by the deadline. But ...

Facing growing pressures, uncertainties, and competition in the current health care environment, Upjohn, American Cyanamid, and Pfizer announced last week that they will cut a total of 7000 jobs over the next few years. The three firms are not specific about where they will cut jobs, but the cuts will be made primarily through employee dismissals. Upjohn says it will cut 1500 jobs by December 1994; American Cyanamid will cut 2500 over three years; and Pfizer will cut 3000 over the next three to five years. These plans make a total of nearly 27,000 job cuts announced by the drug industry during the past 12 months. Worldwide health care cost-containment measures and the prospect of health care reform in the U.S. are leading companies to make operations as lean, efficient, and productive as possible. Cyanamid, which will focus on its life sciences business with the impending spin-off of its Cytec Industries chemicals operations, anticipates taking ...

Third-quarter earnings released so far show improvement by many chemical companies over last year's results. In a few cases they show striking improvement. But not for two big firms—Monsanto and Dow Chemical. Monsanto, whose earnings fell 49% in the second quarter, posted a third quarter drop of 50% in earnings from continuing operations (earnings totaled $53 million on sales of $1.88 billion). However, sales rose 3% over last year's third quarter. Most of the decline came in two product areas—chemicals and the NutraSweet artificial sweetener units. Operating income for chemicals fell 44% to $43 million, and NutraSweet operating income dropped 52% to $21 million. Monsanto's agricultural products unit showed a hefty increase in operating income to $57 million, up 63% from last year's third quarter, making it the largest contributor to company earnings. If results within one company can be "mixed," this happened at Dow in the third quarter. Earnings fell 35% to $145 million, ...

Ernest H. Volwiler, 99, president of the American Chemical Society in 1950, chairman of the ACS Board of Directors from 1954 to 1956, and retired chairman of the board of Abbott Laboratories, died Oct. 3, in Lake Forest, III. Volwiler's career was marked by his creative research on synthetic drugs. During World War I, he made possible the commercial production of anesthetics that were formerly only obtainable from Germany. Among these were anesthesin, benzocaine, and novocaine. Later, he developed manufacturing techniques for butyn, a painkiller; nembutal, a hypnotic sedative; and sodium pentothal, a general anesthetic; as well as processes for other anesthetics and sleep-producing drugs. During World War II, he directed the production of sulfa drugs and penicillin. He also contributed to the development of antihistamines and drugs for treating epilepsy. Immediately following the war, Volwiler, at the request of the U.S. Surgeon General and the Chemical Warfare Service, headed a team of scientists that ...

Double-digit improvements in earnings and, in most cases, sales were being reported by U.S. pharmaceutical companies last week as results for the year's second quarter started to come in. For instance, at Bristol-Myers Squibb, earnings increased 17% from last year's second quarter to $490 million, on a 10% sales gain to $2.73 billion. The company cites improved domestic sales, particularly strong sales of pharmaceutical and medical devices, as the cause for its strong showing. Upjohn was one of the few companies reporting sales growing at a faster rate than earnings. Earnings from continuing operations at the company rose 12% to $128 million, but sales grew 14% to $859 million. However, Upjohn had some nonrecurring items on its balance sheet for last year's second quarter; if these are excluded, the company says earnings increased 34%. Earnings for Marion Merrell Dow increased 25% to $162 million on a 14% sales gain to $718 million. ...

The Food &Drug Administration has ordered Monsanto to stop promoting genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (BGH) while the drugis still under review. However, Walter P. Hobgood, Monsanto's director of animal nutrition and health, says, "We believe that we have always complied with the guidelines FDA has, and we willcontinue to do that."Monsanto's activities have been informational, notpromotional, he asserts. Monsanto, American Cyanamid, Eli Lilly & Co., and Up john haveeach spent millions of dollars to develop their own versions of BGH, also called bovine somatotropin, which increases milk production in cows. FDA has approved the sale of meat and milk from cows treated with BGH in research trials. But the agency is still reviewing the hormone's health effects and efficacy in cows and has not cleared BGH for general marketing. In a Jan. 9 letter to Monsanto, Gerald B. Guest, director of FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, states that Monsanto ...