It also has a Consumer Healthcare operation comprising leading oral healthcare products, nutritional drinks, and over the counter medicines. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
History
GlaxoSmithKline building in Hamburg, Germany
GSK was formed in 2000 by the merger of GlaxoWellcome (formed from the mergers of Burroughs Wellcome & Company and Glaxo Laboratories), and SmithKline Beecham (from Beecham, and SmithKline).
GlaxoWellcome
In 1880, Burroughs Wellcome & Company was founded in London by American pharmacists Henry Wellcome and Silas Burroughs. The Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories opened in 1902.In 1959 the Wellcome Company bought McDougall & Robertson Inc. to become more active in animal health. The Wellcome Company production centre was moved from New York to North Carolina in 1970 and the following year another research centre was built.
Glaxo was founded in Bunnythorpe, New Zealand in 1904. Originally Glaxo was a baby food manufacturer processing local milk into a baby food by the same name: the product was sold in the 1930s under the slogan "Glaxo builds bonny babies". Still visible on the main street of Bunnythorpe is a derelict dairy factory (factory for drying and processing cows' milk into powder) with the original Glaxo logo clearly visible, but nothing to indicate that this was the start of a major multinational company.
Glaxo became Glaxo Laboratories, and opened new units in London in 1935. Glaxo Laboratories bought two companies called Joseph Nathan and Allen & Hanburys in 1947 and 1958 respectively. After the Company bought Meyer Laboratories in 1978, it started to play an important role in the US market. In 1983 the American arm Glaxo Inc. moved to Research Triangle Park (US headquarters/research) and Zebulon (US manufacturing) in North Carolina. Burroughs Wellcome and Glaxo merged in 1995 to form GlaxoWellcome. In the same year, GlaxoWellcome opened its Medicine Research Centre in Stevenage.Three years later GlaxoWellcome bought Polfa Poznan Company in Poland.
SmithKline Beecham
In 1843, Thomas Beecham launched his Beecham's Pills laxative in England giving birth to the Beecham Group.
Beechams opened its first factory in St Helens, Lancashire, England for rapid production of medicines in 1859. By the 1960s it was extensively involved in pharmaceuticals.
The GSK Headquarters in Brentford
In 1830, John K. Smith opened its first pharmacy in Philadelphia. In 1865 Mahlon Kline joined the business which, 10 years later, became Smith, Kline & Co. Subsequently, in 1891, it merged with French, Richard and Company. It changed its name to Smith Kline & French Laboratories as it focused more on research in 1929. Years later, Smith Kline & French Laboratories opened a new laboratory in Philadelphia; it then bought Norden Laboratories, a business doing research into animal health.
Smith Kline & French Laboratories bought Recherche et Industrie Thérapeutiques (Belgium) in 1963 to order to focus on vaccines. The Company started to expand globally buying seven laboratories in Canada and the US in 1969. In 1982, it bought Allergan, a manufacturer of eye and skincare products. The Company merged with Beckman Inc. later that year and then changed its name to SmithKline Beckman.
In 1988, SmithKline Beckman bought its biggest competitor, International Clinical Laboratories, and in 1989 merged with Beecham to form SmithKline Beecham plc. The headquarters of the Company were then moved to England. To expand research & development in the US, SmithKline Beecham bought a new research center in 1995. Another new research centre at New Frontiers Science Park in Harlow was opened in 1997.
In 2000, Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham merged to form GlaxoSmithKline.
Recent developments
In 2001 it completed its purchase of New Jersey-based Block Drug.
On November 16th, 2009 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that a vaccine for 2009 H1N1 influenza protection (manufactured by GSK's ID Biomedical Corp. subsidiary) would join the four vaccines approved on September 15th.[5]
