Our history

John K Smith and his brother-in-law, John Gilbert, opened a drugstore in Philadelphia in 1830.

When John Gilbert decided to withdraw, Smith was joined by his younger brother George. The company soon became a leader in drug wholesaling.

Thomas Beecham was the founder of the Beecham organisation. Born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1820, the son of a farm labourer, he enjoyed only a brief formal education before starting work at the age of eight, as a shepherd boy.

He noticed that sheep tend to eat certain grasses and started to experiment with and study these herbs, recognising their medicinal properties.

Having decided that his future was as a full-time medicine vendor, Beecham moved to the town of Wigan in the north of England. He graduated from working as a market stallholder to owning a shop, and as sales of Beecham's Pills brand of laxative grew, he began to concentrate on manufacturing and national marketing.

Beecham closed his shop in Wigan and moved to St Helens, another industrial town a few miles away, where he opened the first Beecham factory.

It was here that Beecham devised mechanised production methods, a necessary move because his markets were now as far afield as Africa and Australia.

Mahlon Kline joined Smith & Shoemaker, as John K Smith & Co had become, as a 19-year-old bookkeeper.

He was too keen and ambitious to confine himself to bookkeeping for long and sought additional duties in the firm. He eventually asked to become a salesman and within a few years his efforts resulted in the addition of many new and large accounts.

Anxious for information about all aspects of the business, Kline conscientiously acquired a scientific knowledge of drugs and medicines by attending courses at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.

The story of Glaxo started with Joseph Nathan, the son of a London tailor who emigrated to Australia in 1853 at the age of 17.

After a few years, he moved to New Zealand and joined his brother-in-law in a general merchandising business, becoming a partner in 1861.

In 1873, after the partnership was dissolved, Joseph Nathan and Company was established. Strong trade links with London continued and an office there was opened in 1876.

Skimmed milk by-product from the Nathan dairy business in New Zealand - already successfully shipping butter to the UK - proved a breakthrough for the family business. A specially-built factory at Bunnythorpe in New Zealand produced milk powder that was sold mainly in bulk for catering and military customers.

With the growing use of the powder as an infant food, particularly as its health features were being realised, the Nathan family changed the name of the product from Defiance Dried Milk to Glaxo brand of milk powder, a name registered in 1906.

To manage the UK promotion of the new product, Joseph Nathan brought back from New Zealand the youngest of his three sons, Alec. It was not until 1911, during a health scare involving liquid milk, that the powdered variety proved to be a safer alternative for the bottle feeding of babies.

The company name was changed to Smith, Kline and Company in 1875. By the mid-1890s, it was the largest wholesale drug house in the Philadelphia area. The company thrived and manufactured a wide range of basic medicines.

Henry Wellcome was born in 1853 on a pioneer farm in the American Midwest. He was influenced at an early age by his uncle, a doctor who also operated a drugstore.

Working his way through college, Wellcome graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1874 and joined McKesson and Robbins, then a leading pharmaceutical business. As a salesman, he travelled extensively in South America and studied the cinchona forests and the production of quinine, a prelude to future business.

Wellcome was invited to London to form a partnership with a Philadelphia pharmacist friend, Silas Burroughs, who was trading in the UK. The idea was to exploit this market with American-made compounded medicines.

The partnership was formalised in 1880 and Burroughs Wellcome & Company was established. Its prosperity owed much to Wellcome's marketing flair, involving bold advertising, using medical and scientific conferences, and the creation in 1884 of the Tabloid trademark.

The business expanded and spread to many countries, but the partnership was ended after just 15 years with the death of Burroughs.

Wellcome continued to build the business and travelled extensively. He contributed to the advancement of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry in many ways, but from 1910 gradually gave more time to the various scientific, archaelogical and collection interests that were to form the core of an internationally famous museum of medical history.

Explorers, pioneering aviators, seafarers and even British royalty and a US president were among the users of Tabloid Medicine Chests.

The brainchild of Henry Wellcome, the chests were first supplied to explorer Sir Henry Stanley for his African journeys in the late 19th century. Scott of the Antarctic and the British Everest Expedition also used the chests, each of which contained specially-selected treatments.

The chests, which could withstand the rigours of polar and equatorial climates, were a successful means to promote the company's products over many years.

Thomas Beecham's son Joseph joined the business in the 1860s and gradually took over the running of the business.

By 1885, sales of Beecham's Pills brand of laxative had grown so much that the original factory had become too small.

A new factory, opened in St Helens, was described as "more of a palace than a factory" and was the first in the area to have electricity.

Beecham was renowned for his high standards of quality and hygiene, ensuring staff were appropriately dressed in white coats in the factory, and that the working environment was dust free.

Beecham also had an ambitious and enlightened marketing strategy. In one year, advertisements were placed in over 7,000 newspapers around the world. Translated by a team of Beecham writers, the ads were printed in the language of the publication.

The original company that John K Smith founded went through numerous mergers and acquisitions.

Probably the most important and far-reaching was the company's absorption in 1891 of French, Richards and Company, another respected drug wholesaler.

This combination gave the new company an inventory of hundreds of varied products, including fine perfumes, liniments, tonics, hair oil, cough medicine, and a comprehensive range of home remedies. It marked the company's first venture into consumer brands.

Growth for Smith, Kline and French in the early 1900s came mainly because of a discovery by Joseph England that led to Eskay's Neurophosphates, used chiefly in the treatment of nervous disorders.

Neuro carried the Smith, Kline and French name beyond the boundaries of the US into Latin America at a time when trade there was in its infancy. The Neuro remained on the company list until 1971.

In the 1890s, Mahlon Kline turned his attention to an industry-wide problem - filling orders and delivering them in a timely fashion. Smith, Kline and French was the first company to inaugurate a policy that all orders received in the morning would be sent out by late afternoon.

Kline also made it company policy that all goods subject to adulteration - for example, unprocessed drugs, balsams, waxes and turpentine - must be passed by a laboratory chemist before being put in stock.

From 1893 everything made at Smith, Kline and French was assayed for standards of quality and purity.

Early research and development by Burroughs Wellcome was centered on the Wellcome Medical Research Laboratories and the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories, both founded in the 1890s.

Henry Wellcome's tenet of "Freedom of research - Liberty to publish" attracted many leading scientists to the London facilities.

A centre for investigation into tropical diseases was added in 1901. This was based in Khartoum in the Sudan, and featured a floating laboratory on the River Nile that enabled research and medical teams to reach regions that were not otherwise easily accessible.

The Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories were formally opened in 1902.

Wellcome's US subsidiary was opened in New York in 1906 and manufacturing and research facilities followed.

Research in the 1920s included studies of the primary and secondary immune responses, production of insulin, the introduction of new forms of diphtheria vaccines and the development of a yellow fever vaccine.

Efforts also were directed to the development of good manufacturing facilities and practices.

In 1924, The Wellcome Foundation Ltd was registered in London as a private company to coordinate Wellcome's expanding businesses and research activities.

The 1930s brought further success. Digoxin was isolated from the digitalis leaf to become the standard treatment for congestive heart failure, a globin zinc insulin was developed, and the first pure curare alkaloid was produced.

Sir Henry Wellcome died in 1936 at the age of 82, leaving through his will the creation of the Wellcome Trust, a charitable foundation to support medical research worldwide.

The Nathan directors realised that selling dried milk as an infant food called for a more appealing name than Defiance, the name used for the New Zealand product. They settled on Lacto, but this was not acceptable because similar names were already registered. By adding and changing letters, the name Glaxo evolved and was registered in October 1906.

The "Glaxo Baby Book" was a unique publication first produced in 1908 that aimed to answer questions from mothers about infant feeding and care.

The booklet, which continued until the 1970s, provided practical advice from nursing staff and reflected the advances in medical and nutritional science. "Glaxo - the Food that Builds Bonnie Babies" became a familiar slogan in Nathan's advertising efforts of the time.

The year 1910 was another period of growth for Smith, Kline and French.

The "Blue Line", which covered a wide assortment of standard drugs sold under the Smith, Kline and French name, was added to the company's inventory. These included poison ivy lotion, iron tablets and lozenges.

While the Joseph Nathan company continued under Louis Nathan, it was the Glaxo department of the organisation under Alec Nathan that continued to drive the business.

Increased demand for dried milk and sales were accelerated with the First World War, and concern for the quality, safety and consistency of dried milk led to technical control improvements.

In 1919, Harry Jephcott, who had chemical and pharmaceutical qualifications, joined the company and led a team that would take the organisation into new realms.

In 1923, Jephcott obtained rights to a process of extracting vitamin D from fish-liver oil. The company's first pharmaceutical product, Ostelin Liquid, resulted in 1924. Also in 1923, Allen and Hanburys and Burroughs Wellcome Co were granted licences to produce insulin for the treatment of diabetes.

Through the 1920s and 1930s, the Joseph Nathan company made considerable progress and opened many subsidiaries and agencies.

Alec Nathan became chairman in 1927 and new and larger facilities were started in 1935 at Greenford, on the western outskirts of London.

The Glaxo department became a subsidiary of Joseph Nathan and Co, called Glaxo Laboratories Ltd, and the product range was increased. During the Second World War, Glaxo was crucially involved in the production of penicillin and by mid-1944 was responsible for 80 per cent of the UK's penicillin doses.

The Beecham estate was purchased by financier Philip Hill, who realised that the Beecham's Pills laxative business could, through diversification, become the basis of a major company.

In 1926, Beecham's Powders analgesic and respiratory tract medication was introduced and a period of expansion by acquisition started - a novel concept at the time but something that became an important element of Beecham's policy.

From a market stall in 1847, the business had grown to a national operation, manufacturing one million pills per day.

Beecham made two important acquisitions in 1938. The first was Macleans. This was a milestone not only because of the major products involved, including Macleans toothpaste and Lucozade energy-replacement drink, but also because of the people it brought into the Beecham organisation - principally HG Lazell, the architect of the company's later success in prescription medicines. Within 15 years, Lucozade was producing about half of Beecham's total profit.

Beecham's second important purchase in 1938 was Eno's Proprietaries, which provided the company with the antacid Eno's Fruit Salts as well as 14 subsidiaries in the Americas, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and western Europe. This worldwide marketing network was as significant an addition as the product itself.

The acquisition of Macleans toothpaste and Lucozade energy drink signalled an expansion to the oral care and drinks markets.

The Horlicks Malted Milk business grew markedly in the years after the beverage was patented. In the early 1930s, "Malted Milk" was dropped from the product description and Horlicks malted milk began promoting the benefits of sound sleep, resulting from the regular bedtime consumption of the drink.

Also in 1938, a blackcurrant syrup made specifically for the preparation of milkshakes was found to have exceptionally high vitamin C content. This product was developed for sale through hospitals and named Ribena, from the Latin for blackcurrant Ribes negrum. Ribena was produced for free distribution to children during the Second World War.

HG Lazell had always believed in the importance of scientific research. By 1943 the Beecham Board had adopted his philosophy, and Beecham Research Laboratories (BRL) was created to focus exclusively on basic pharmaceutical research.

In 1945, BRL purchased Brockham Park in the south of England. In 1947 its new research laboratories were opened. It was there that Beecham scientists made their most important discovery.

Penicillin, the world's first antibiotic, which was at first seen as a miracle drug, had by the 1950s given rise to a clinical problem. Its widespread use greatly increased the incidence of strains of bacteria that were resistant to penicillin, to such an extent that hospital wards had to be closed because of their infection with these strains.

In 1959, Brockham Park became famous when Beecham scientists there discovered the penicillin nucleus, 6-APA. Using this as a starting material, scientists were able to create an almost infinite number of new semisynthetic penicillins, whose activity could be directed against problem infections.

By the 1960s, BRL was producing a wide variety of antibiotics, including the world's first semisynthetic penicillin. Over the following 20 years, Beecham was to produce a wide range of antibiotics and would become a world leader in anti-infective treatments.

For Glaxo, the end of the Nathan era came with the retirement at the end of 1945 of Alec Nathan and, within a few years, Glaxo Laboratories Ltd became a public company and Joseph Nathan and Co ceased to exist.

R&D teams were strengthened and achieved early successes including the first vaccine to combine protection against whooping cough and diphtheria, and Crystapen, a white crystalline form of penicillin that was more stable.

Production capability was greatly increased with the opening of a purpose-built antibiotics factory at Ulverston in northwest England, which was to become Glaxo's primary production centre.

The early 1950s brought a tablet form of penicillin, a number of nutritional products, a triple-antigen vaccine for diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus, plus a specialist veterinary department that progressively provided veterinary surgeons with versions of important human medicines.

The most significant advance, however, was the entry into cortisone production and the marketing from 1955 of the first of a wide range of corticosteroid products for illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and dermatological and allergic respiratory conditions. In addition, a new series of antibiotics known as cephalosporins was to revolutionise therapy from the mid-1960s.

Following the acquisition of Allen and Hanburys in 1958 and the resulting additional R&D facilities, Ventolin (salbutamol) was launched in 1969 and became the gold standard for treatment for acute asthma attacks.

Other products of this era included Betnovate (betamethasone valerate) in 1963 and a range of creams and ointments, as well as a range of improved antibiotics.

During the 1950s, Smith Kline and French launched Thorazine (chlorpromazine), which revolutionised the treatment of mental illness.

It became the product of reference in the first generation of central nervous system drugs. However, in the beginning, there were some difficulties.

One was the fact that American private practice psychiatrists did not at first accept the idea of treating mentally ill patients by chemical means. But Smith Kline and French's hypothesis that the drug actually corrected mental malfunctioning was vindicated in several clinical trials, which were reported later in American medical journals.

Soon afterwards, Thorazine began to be used increasingly in mental health programmes. It won the status of a "fundamental drug in medicine," the standard against which all other tranquillisers were measured.

As early as 1945, researchers at Smith Kline and French began evaluating the therapeutic advantages of coatings for tablets.

Chemists also started searching for chemical or mechanical techniques that would gradually release drugs for a predictable therapeutic effect over an entire day or night.

By 1949, Donald McDonnell realised the possible solution to the release-action puzzle, which was to fill capsules with pellets coated with medication that would dissolve at different times.

Because of the complexities of implementation and adaptation to large-scale manufacturing, it was not until 1952 that the time-released capsule known as a Spansule was used and marketed.

It was first used for Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine sulfate) for treating psychiatric patients of certain types and patients suffering from depression, fatigue or listlessness, and for patients afflicted with narcolepsy.

The Spansule provided a novel form of drug delivery, which was a major therapeutic breakthrough. It quickly released the required initial dose and then slowly and gradually released many extremely small doses to maintain a therapeutic level lasting from 10 to 12 hours, providing all-day or all-night therapy with one dose.

Subsequently, the firm marketed a number of other sustained-release preparations, one of which is the cold remedy Contac. Launched in 1960, Contac later became the world's leading cold remedy.

More than seven years of research and more than 35,000 hours of work were required to develop the sustained-release capsule, Spansule.

The "rational approach" to drug discovery by George Hitchings and Gertrude Elion in Wellcome's US laboratories led to the discovery in 1951 of Purinethol (mercaptopurine), one of the first effective anticancer treatments.

In a collaboration lasting over 30 years, the two scientists initiated many new cures and treatments. Their research was based on studies of nucleic acids, the chemical building blocks of DNA.

They made a series of analogues, similar compounds with slightly different chemical structures, to search for compounds that would block the cellular reproduction of disease-causing organisms.

The development by Hitchings and Elion of Daraprim (pyrimethamine) provided a new standard for protection against malaria.

It was part of the Wellcome group's continuing strength in the area of tropical medicine and its contribution towards the health of both humans and animals in developing countries. This contribution extended to health programmes and on-the-spot medical advisers.

During the 1960s, Beecham branched out into animal health products. Beecham realised it could extend the use of penicillins to control disease in animals, and later built a range of vitamin, mineral and protein products for animals.

Beecham Animal Health products such as Orbenin rapidly gained a reputation for reliability.

At Wellcome, George Hitchings and Gertrude Elion synthesised trimethoprim, which was subsequently combined with a sulphamide to form a broad-spectrum systemic antibacterial agent Septrin (co-trimoxazole). From 1968, this became one of the leading anti-bacterial treatments worldwide.

The "rational approach" to the development of the pharmaceutical business was increasingly evident in the fields of R&D at Glaxo, where David Jack and his colleagues focused on discovering chemical substances to manipulate natural mediators such as transmitters, hormones and enzymes to cause selective effects in specific organs in patients.

Early success with this approach came with Ventolin (salbutamol), which was launched in 1969 and became the gold standard treatment for acute asthma attacks.

This success led to a range of compounds for opening up restricted airways by the selective stimulation of receptors in bronchial muscle, and of inhaled steroids to treat the underlying inflammation in asthma and various allergic conditions such as hay fever.

Beecham Research Laboratories discovered amoxycillin in 1972, launched as Amoxil (amoxicillin), a broad-spectrum penicillin that rapidly became a widely prescribed antibiotic.

Amoxil has proven to be particularly useful in treating bacterial infections such as ear and throat infections in young children. Amoxycillin became the world's most widely used antibiotic.

The Beecham Group made a takeover bid for Glaxo Group in 1972. As a defence measure, Glaxo moved to increase its size and announced a proposal to merge with UK chemists Boots. The Monopolies Commission, however, ruled after five months of investigation and deliberation that neither merger should proceed. Glaxo's parent company renamed itself Glaxo Holdings.

Smith Kline and French scientists were responsible for the development of Tagamet (cimetidine), the drug that revolutionised peptic ulcer therapy and ultimately became the first drug to achieve sales of over $1 billion a year.

It was marketed in 1976 in the UK and in 1977 in the US - and subsequently throughout the world - for the treatment of duodenal ulcer and certain gastrointestinal disorders, and soon became one of the world's most prescribed medicines.

The product was universally accepted and praised by gastroenterologists, internists, family practitioners, surgeons and patients.

In 1988, Sir James Black was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his research into beta-blockers and the discovery of Tagamet.

Augmentin (amoxicillin / clavulanate potassium), a broad-spectrum penicillin for a wide range of bacterial infections in children and adults, was launched by Beecham.

Resistance to antibiotics is a major problem and Augmentin meets a growing clinical need to overcome the major cause of resistance. Augmentin is considered the gold standard in treating serious - mostly respiratory - infections.

In 1992, Augmentin became SmithKline Beecham's second billion-dollar product.

Zantac (ranitidine hydrochloride), the anti-ulcerant launched by Glaxo in 1981, was to become the world's top-selling medicine by the end of the 1980s and represented 40 per cent of the company's turnover for many years.

Its revenue provided substantial funds for research and development, increasingly costly because of the need for worldwide clinical trials and stringent licensing requirements.

It was through a combination of applying a "rational approach" to drug discovery and experience in antivirals that Wellcome scientists were able to synthesise the pioneering compound aciclovir in 1974.

The result was the first effective treatment for a group of herpes virus infections including shingles, chickenpox and cold sores.

Launched in 1981 as Zovirax (acyclovir), it was destined to become Wellcome's most successful product.

The company's antiviral experience also was valuable in its work against AIDS and the launch in 1987 of Retrovir (zidovudine), also known as AZT, for the treatment of AIDS and HIV.

The acquisition of the US firm of Norcliff Thayer added Tums (antacid tablets) and Oxy (acne treatments) to Beecham's over-the-counter portfolio.

The purchase reinforced the group's strong position in the US over-the-counter market. Beecham also divested businesses in the mid-1980s and decided to concentrate on two key areas of consumer products, and prescription and over-the-counter medicines.

Consumer products represented 42 per cent of total sales in 1988. Prescription and over-the-counter medicines represented 58 per cent of sales in that year.

The merger in 1989 of SmithKline Beckman and the Beecham Group to form SmithKline Beecham created a new company with one of the world's biggest research and development organisations.

The combined product portfolio, pipeline and geographic networks positioned SmithKline Beecham at the forefront of the global healthcare industry.

The new company reasserted its goal to become an integrated human healthcare company, covering prevention, diagnosis, treatment, cure and disease management, and creating customer healthcare solutions.

In the 1990s, with the promise of "Striving to Make People's Lives Healthier," SmithKline Beecham continued to launch new drugs such as Seroxat/Paxil (paroxetine hydrochloride) for the treatment of depression and Relifex/Relafen (nabumetone), an anti-inflammatory drug for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Pioneering work on neurotransmitters acting on specific cells and producing compounds either to block or to stimulate them led to Glaxo's Zofran (ondansetron), the first of the serotonin class of drugs. Zofran was launched in 1990 to alleviate the problem of nausea and vomiting in cancer patients receiving cytotoxic drugs or radiotherapy.

In the same year, the company launched the long-acting asthma treatment Serevent (salmeterol), and Flixotide/Flixonase (fluticasone propionate), a steroid for the treatment of asthma.

The increasing commercial success of these and other new products and improved presentations of existing ones, together with manufacturing, marketing and administration efficiencies, proved vital to maintaining the pace of Glaxo's growth into the 1990s.

In 1993, SmithKline Beecham negotiated a multi-million-dollar research collaboration agreement with Human Genome Sciences Inc (HGS), an enterprise developed for the purpose of identifying and describing the functions of the genes in the human body.

The agreement gave SmithKline Beecham certain rights to develop both drug products and diagnostic tests based on the gene sequencing information that HGS discovered.

As an extension of that agreement, SmithKline Beecham established the Genetic Testing Center in California and broadened its testing service to include a growing number of molecular diagnostic tests for genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Fragile X Syndrome and Tay-Sachs Disease.

Sterling Health was acquired in 1994, making SmithKline Beecham the third largest over-the-counter medicines company in the world and number one in Europe and the international markets.