In research conducted at the Glaxo Wellcome laboratory in Research Triangle Park, N.
More than a decade later, the drug is used by 1.5m sufferers, according to its manufacturer, Glaxo Wellcome.
His acquisition of Glaxo Wellcome's research labs in Geneva scientists and all in 1997 gave Serono state-of-the-art facilities at a fair price.
The hastily announced drug merger between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham collapsed when neither boss was prepared to pay second fiddle.
The deal was abandoned when SKB entered merger talks with Glaxo Wellcome.
BBC: News | The Company File | AHP and Monsanto call off merger
Mario Geysen, now a senior research scientist at Glaxo Wellcome, pioneered combinatorial chemistry back in 1982 when he was at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne, Australia.
Two new giants were created in the drug industry : Glaxo Wellcome announced a union with SmithKline Beecham, and Pfizer completed its acquisition of Warner-Lambert.
In Britain, there is a well-worn path between drug giants such as SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome, and executive and non-executive slots on biotech boards.
In the meantime Humer is counting on a turnaround in the company's far-flung research labs, orchestrated by research head Jonathan Knowles, hired by Humer from Glaxo Wellcome in 1997.
Glaxo Wellcome says that, since television ads for its genital-herpes treatment, Valtrex, started late last year, it has received 600, 000 calls, many from people not even registered with a doctor.
The recently launched Competitiveness Council, which includes the chairmen of British Aerospace and Glaxo Wellcome, a pharmaceuticals firm, has a remit that is striking both in its vagueness and its ambition.
Although it is not in the same league as Merck or Glaxo Wellcome, Takeda, Japan's largest drug firm, has a string of original drugs in the pipeline including a fast-acting alternative to Viagra.
Megamergers like Vodaphone's bid to buy Mannesmann in telecom and Glaxo Wellcome's embrace of SmithKline Beecham in drugs are reducing the supply of big, rich companies that can pay Spencer Stuart's hefty fees.
Glaxo Wellcome glx (nyse: glx - news - people) tried the same thing with its antidepressant drug buproprion in 1997, a drug it has sold under the name Wellbutrin since 1987.
There has also been speculation that the company, formed two years ago from a tie-up between the UK's Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, could be forced into further costly mergers or acquisitions in order to ensure future growth.
For example, a genetic database created by Spectra Biomedical, a division of Glaxo Wellcome, found an unexpected correlation between migraine attacks, serious depression and variations in the dopamine D2 receptor (a molecule that sticks out of certain nerve cells).
GSK's two predecessor companies, SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome, which merged to form GSK in 2000, had been among the first to invest in gene-hunting technology that scientists once thought would fast lead to a bushelful of new drugs.
The consortium is a who's who of important pharmaceutical names: AstraZeneca azn (nyse: azn - news - people), Bristol-Myers Squibb bmy (nyse: bmy - news - people), Glaxo Wellcome glx (nyse: glx - news - people), Novartis nvs (nyse: nvs - news - people), Pfizer pfe (nyse: pfe - news - people)and SmithKline Beecham sbh (nyse: sbh - news - people).
But even if it only does as well as Glaxo-Wellcome did, Lilly stands to benefit enormously.
The change, which has yet to be implemented, is being announced at a speech in London at the Wellcome Trust, where Glaxo chief executive Andrew Witty is also detailing how the British drug giant has made its chemical libraries available to researchers working on drugs against tuberculosis and malaria.
FORBES: With Transparency Pledge, Glaxo Makes Promises No Other Drug Company Has
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