Neurontin was introduced by Warner-Lambert in 1994 to help preserve that company's epilepsy franchise.
Some of last years notable winners, including Warner-Lambert and Dell, are significantly off their highs.
One drug which does this, Cognex (made by Warner-Lambert), has been on the market since 1994.
It has a three-year contract to provide Warner-Lambert with a miniaturized screening facility.
The fraud-on-the-FDA argument gets another hearing in February in a lawsuit over the Warner-Lambert diabetes drug Rezulin.
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But sensible is not sexy, and did not win the hearts of Warner-Lambert's shareholders, who prefer Pfizer's siren song.
Lodewijk de Vink, Warner-Lambert's boss, who will head AmericanWarner, is a spry 54.
Or, for that matter, Schering-Plough, recently purchased by Merck, and Warner-Lambert, Pharmacia, and Wyeth, all wrapped up into Pfizer.
In contrast, Warner-Lambert's sales rose by 30% in the same period, largely driven by Lipitor, the world's most popular cholesterol-lowering drug.
To ensure its leadership, Pfizer grabbed all of Lipitor first with its hostile take-over of Warner-Lambert, followed by the purchase of Pharmacia.
Pedro Cuatrecasas, who headed drug research at Warner-Lambert when Lipitor was invented there, warns that pharmaceutical innovation is "in jeopardy" because of megamergers.
He points out that analysts also had trouble predicting sales for Lipitor before Warner-Lambert , the firm that invented the drug, was bought by Pfizer.
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.
Roger Newton, who, as an executive at Pfizer predecessor Warner-Lambert in the 1990s, had championed the development of Lipitor before it became the best-selling drug ever.
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And the biggest mergers--its purchases of Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia--are a likely cause for the lack of productivity, because they hurt morale and made the laboratories more disorganized.
Roger Newton , the scientist who led development of Lipitor at Warner-Lambert , says he had to fight to get it tested because it was seen as a likely late entrant.
Eventually, Pfizer bought Warner-Lambert largely for Lipitor's sales potential.
Everyone seems to think that Pfizer has to do yet another big merger (it bought Warner-Lambert in 2000 and Pharmacia in 2002), and is the only big step Kindler can take to fix Pfizer.
If it is a huge seller, however, many have speculated that Merck will buy Schering-Plough in a move reminiscent of Pfizer's purchase of such partners as Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia (nyse: PHA - news - people ).
Instead, doctors found that Neurontin helped with many other ailments, particularly pain caused by nerve damage due to conditions like shingles and diabetes. (This is called neuropathic pain.) That put Warner-Lambert in a bind, because it could not promote the drug for these unapproved uses.
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