These start-ups are joining established producers such as Merck and Wyeth-Lederle, two American companies which know how to make and market vaccines.

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And so, too, Lederle, now part of Wyeth which is part of Pfizer, and Searle, which was bought by Pharmacia which was bought by Pfizer.

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But even toward the end of his tenure at Lederle, big pharmaceutical companies were starting to pare back on antibiotics, opting for more lucrative cancer and heart drugs.

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Two of the three companies making the DPT vaccine stopped distributing it, leaving only one company, Lederle (now owned by Wyeth which is now owned by Pfizer) supplying it.

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For nine years, beginning in 1986, he headed antibiotic research at Lederle Laboratories, a division of what is now Wyeth (nyse: WYE - news - people ), where he launched the drug Zosyn in 1993.

FORBES: Magazine Article