Glaxo

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GlaxoSmithKline factory in Ulverston , Cumbria, England (2008)

Glaxo was a New Zealand and later British pharmaceutical company, which was founded in 1873, merged into Glaxo Wellcome in 1995 and has been part of GlaxoSmithKline , one of the world's top-selling pharmaceutical companies, since 2000 .

history

In 1873 Joseph Edward Nathan (1835-), who came from an Orthodox Jewish family in the East End of London , who emigrated to Australia during the gold rush and moved to New Zealand in 1856, founded the trading company Joseph Nathan and Co in Wellington . After initially dealing with the colonial goods trade, he was soon looking for ways to expand his company. He made experiments with refrigerated transports; in 1882 the Dunedin ship delivered almost perfectly refrigerated goods to Great Britain for the first time, and Nathan became Chairman of the Wellington Meat Export Company. In the mid-1880s, he set up his own office in London, which was then the center of world trade. As a result, he founded or acquired a total of 17 dairies in the Manawatu District . Due to its increased capital requirements, Joseph Nathan and Company London Ltd was registered in 1899 , which subsequently produced dry milk. In 1904 a new drying process was established for this purpose, and a new dry milk factory was built in Bunnythorpe under the new brand name Defiance . After the first factory was set on fire by a competitor, the successor factory was soon established. When looking for a brand name, the first decision was made for "Lacto", but since this was already reserved for various other companies, the brand name Glaxo , which was registered on October 27, 1906, was created by exchanging letters .

The main target group of the company was infant nutrition, as the dangers of fresh milk due to contamination played a major role at that time. Glaxo had approximately 300 competitors in the UK markets . An advertisement that appeared on the front page of the London Daily Mail in 1908 coined the slogan the food that builds bonny babies , which would later become more famous. At first losses were incurred, the turnover was not reached until 1918, and a turnover of 550,000 pounds was achieved. In 1908, midwives were hired to start the Glaxo Baby Book , a publication that was instantly popular with mothers and was published for the next 60 years. This form of direct marketing was new for the time and was described by Advertising World magazine as the most successful form of advertising of the present day . In 1925 the name Glaxo was mentioned in Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway . Joseph Nathan died on May 2, 1912 at his London residence near Notting Hill Gate in London . The company was continued by his sons.

In 1919, pharmacist Harry Jephcott was hired to improve quality control and was responsible for getting the company interested in medicines. In 1924, after vitamins A and D had been discovered and the problem of vitamin deficiency diseases had become apparent, Glaxo brought its first pharmaceuticals onto the market with vitamin preparations. The Farex baby food was launched on the market in 1934 and quickly became well known, especially in New Zealand and Great Britain. In the early 1930s the management of Nathan's in New Zealand was relocated to London, and in 1935 the Glaxo Department was renamed Glaxo Laboratories .

Since 1946, penicillin was the first antibiotic produced by Glaxo, which was to temporarily become the market leader in Great Britain. During the same period, animal products and animal vaccines were added to the range. From 1964 the revolutionary brucella abortus vaccination was produced for cattle.

The energy and nutritional supplement drink Complan was introduced as early as 1955 . In 1968 the first merger took place with the takeover of the British Drug Houses (BDH) company.

In 1974 the historic factory in Bunnythorpe was closed, which is still preserved today as a historic building.

In 1995 the company Burroughs Wellcome & Company was taken over and merged with Glaxo to form Glaxo Wellcome . The company was later merged into GlaxoSmithKline .

Products

As the first medical product, Glaxo sold a vitamin D preparation. The breakthrough came later with Zantac ( ranitidine ).

literature

  • Department of Internal Affairs : Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Volume 2: 1870-1900. Allen & Unwin, Wellington 1993, ISBN 0-908912-49-8 .
  • RPT Davenport-Hines, Judy Slinn: Glaxo. A History to 1962. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1992, ISBN 0-521-41539-X .
  • Julia Millen: Glaxo. From Bonnie Babies to Better Medicines. The people who made Glaxo. Glaxo New Zealand Ltd., Palmerston North NZ 1991, ISBN 0-473-01168-9 .
  • Sir Harry Jephcott: The First Fifty Years. An Account of the early Life of Joseph Edward Nathan and first fifty Years of his Merchandise Business that eventually became the Glaxo Group. WS Cowell Ltd., Ipswich 1969.

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