UpJohn-Searle

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. 

And there are opportunities for Biotech. The consolidation within the industry has reduced the number of companies investigating particular diseases or conditions. For example, in cardiovascular disease there are now only three to four truly major players Merck, Astra-Zeneca, Pfizer, and Novartis. In 1991 there were seven companies making antibiotics now there are three, dominated by Pfizer and Abbott. The R D programs of the acquired can be dropped. Pharmacia merged with UpJohn-Searle mostly for its COX-2 inhibitor (Celebrex) it dropped much of the rest of the research programs. Pharmacia is now part of Pfizer, and much of Pharmacia s research portfolio has been similarly dropped. 

Before the formation of Pharmacia through the merger of Pharmacia Upjohn with Monsanto-Searle in 2000, each company had its own approaches to augment and diversify their compound collections, and these approaches set the stage for the procedure implemented at Pharmacia. Thus, it was felt that a brief description of the historical background to the present work would be informative and would afford additional insights that bear directly on the development of the compound acquisition strategy described here. 

To the memory of now-defunct laboratories where once I practiced my craft Building H at G.D. Searle in Skokie, Upjohn s Building 25 in Kalamazoo and the diminutive Chemistry Annex at the Adria Laboratories just outside Dublin, Ohio. 

Pfizer merges with Pharmacia, which had earlier merged with Upjohn and G. D. Searle. 

Both Celebrex and Bextra were developed by Searle, which was subsequently purchased by Monsanto. Monsanto later merged with Pharmacia and Upjohn, and the resultant company later merged with Pfizer. 23 University of Rochester v. G.D. Searle Co., 249 F.2d 216 (W.D. N.Y. 2003). The District Court also held the claims to be invalid due to lack of enablement, an issue we will discuss further later in this chapter. 

Several other companies were quickly attracted into the field, notably G. D. Searle, Roussel-UCLAF, Wyeth, Philips-Duphar, Organon, Upjohn, and Merck, each pursuing the synthesis of new molecules. The most important consideration was to find novel patentable structures derived from their positions in their chosen starting raw... 

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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