Searle Pharmaceuticals

In 1997 Monsanto divested the 3 billion a year chemicals segment of its business (now called Solutia). Management shifted its focus to life sciences such that the company now consists of life sciences and agricultural products, Searle pharmaceuticals, and food ingredients. Monsanto investors now are likely to be interested in higher risk and higher returns but this may take time. This is a company in transition. 

Aspartame was discovered accidentally in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, an employee of the G. D. Searle pharmaceutical company. Schlatter was searching for a chemical compound that could be used to treat ulcers. L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester was one of the compounds he made during his investigations. He accidentally got some of the compound on his fingers, a fact that he did not notice until later in the day. 

Norinyl (Searle) Ortho-Cept (Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical) Ortho-Cyclen (Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical) Ortho Novum (Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical) Ortho-Tri-Cyclen (Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical) Ovral (Wyeth-Ayerst) Tri-Levlen (Berlex) Tri-Norinyl (Searle) Triphasil (Wyeth-Ayerst)... 

J. A. Searles, J. F. Carpenter, and T. W. Randolph, Primary drying rate heterogeneity during pharmaceutical lyophilization, Am. Pharm. Rev., 3, (2000). 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For financial support we acknowledge the National Institutes of Health, G.D. Searle, the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, and the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. We also thank Professor Emeritus Paul J. Scheuer for his helpful discussion, Dr. John Pezzutofor anticancer assays, and the TAACF for anti-TB assays. 

Searles, J.A., Carpenter, J.F., Randolph, T.W. Annealing to optimize the primary drying rate, reduce freezing-induced drying heterogeneity, and determine T8g in pharmaceutical lyophilization. J. Pharm. Sci. 90, 872-887, 2001... 

Cepa, S. Searle, P. 1998. Establishing an open access LC/MS lab for pharmaceutical discovery and development. Proc. 46th ASMS Conf. Mass Spectrom. and Allied Topics (Orlando, Florida), 283. 

A recent case heard on appeal by a panel of the CAFC, Univ. of Rochester v. G.D. Searle Co. provides an example of a written description, possession of the invention controversy.20 Although this is a pharmaceutical science rather than a pure chemistry case, the general discussion in the opinion is instructive for its reflection of the current judicial policy values in regard to whether a broad claim finds adequate written description support in the specification (outside of the new matter context already discussed). 

There has been and will continue to be iimovative reconstruction of the pharmaceutical industry with, for example, cross-licensing of products and expertise. Sandoz collaborated with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) in oncology. Other companies have a more acquisitive outlook. Pfizer bought Warner-Lambert for its cholesterol-lowering Lipitor, and Pharmacia merged with UpJohn-Searle for its COX-2 inhibitor. Pfizer then acquired Pharmacia-UpJohn-Searle to become the world s largest pharmaceutical company. 

The term "activation spectra" is a common term used by polymer and photobiology chemists, but it is foreign to most pharmaceutical photochemists. Excellent reviews of this technique and "action spectra" and their applications have been published by Coohill (10,11), Caldwell et al. (12), Kleczkowski (13), Peak and Peak (14), Rundel (15), Sutherland et al. (16), Searle (17,18), Andrady (19), Andrady et al. (20), and Andrady et al. (21). 

At this point in one synthesis of the tetrapeptide in the laboratories of Searle, the American pharmaceutical company, a remarkable discovery occurred. The AspPhe methyl ester was accidentally found to taste sweet extremely sweet—about 200 times as sweet as sucrose. AspPhe is now known as aspartame, marketed under the brand name Nutrasweet. 

Sterling-Winthrop, G. D. Searle, Merrell, Marion (initially), A. H. Robbins, and Richardson-Vicks, while European competitors acquired Cutter, Morton, Marion (second-hand), Rorer, and Syntex. Hence no new major pharmaceutical companies were established after the 1920s. 

Syntex was established in Mexico City in 1944 by two refugee scientists— a Hungarian and a German—in association with a chemist from Pennsylvania State University named Russell B. Marker, who had discovered a way to produce steroid hormones from the roots of a vine growing wild in Mexico. The company began selling extremely rare sex hormones in bulk to pharmaceutical firms. At this time the major innovator in this new field of anabolic steroids (male hormones) was an old-line pharmaceutical firm, Searle. ... 

In 1960 Searle became the first to introduce an FDA-approved oral contraceptive. Early in 1962 Johnson Johnson s subsidiary. Ortho Pharmaceuticals, debuted its Norethindrone-based pill in 1964 Parke Davis and Syntex (with Eli Lilly) announced their FDA-approved products. Thus in the United States three of the first oral contraceptives that became available were developed by Syntex or manufactured from materials it produced. 

LYNN D. TORBECK is an International Consultant specializing in applied statistics and experimental design for pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical development, quality assurance, and control validation, Torbeck Associates, Inc., Evanston, Illinois. Mr. Torbeck received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Statistics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and formerly was Director of Validation World-Wide Quality Assurance, C. D. Searle (Pfizer), Skokie, Illinois. 

Also, the composition of firms in the pharmaceutical industry changes as mergers and acquisitions alter SIC codes. For example, the acquisition in 1985 of G.D. Searle Company by Monsanto Corporation, a chemical firm, probably caused Searle s spending on R D to be counted in SIC 281 (chemicals) in subsequent years. Because the SIC classifications change with merger and acquisition activity, NSF is probably a less reliable source of industrywide R D growth rates than is PM A. 

Ortho Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson Johnson, has had an ongoing contraceptive R D program. Eight companies that have discontinued Such R D are Syntex, Searle, Parke-Davis, Merck, Upjohn, Mead Johnson, Wyeth-Ayerst, and Eli Lilly (207). Wyeth-Ayerst, a subsidiary of American Home products, has renewed its contraceptive R D program in recent years, focusing on new forms of oral contraceptives (8,25 1). In addition, a relatively new, small firm, Gynco-Pharma, currently markets a copper IUD. Non-U.S. firms as well as universities and nonprofit foundations also carry on R D on new forms of birth control (207). 

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