King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company, a wholly owned subsidiary of

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...

based in

Bristol, Tennessee Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 27,147 at the 2020 census. It is the twin city of Bristol, Virginia, which lies directly across the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. The boundary be ...

. Before being acquired by Pfizer, it was the world's 39th largest

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry is a Medicine, medical industry that discovers, develops, produces, and markets pharmaceutical goods such as medications and medical devices. Medications are then administered to (or Self-medicate, self-administered b ...

. On October 12, 2010, King was acquired by

for $14.25 per share. King produced a wide range of

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

s, including

Altace Ramipril, sold under the brand name Altace among others, is an ACE inhibitor type medication used to treat high blood pressure, heart failure, and diabetic kidney disease. It can also be used as a preventative medication in patients over 55 y ...

for

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

prevention, Levoxyl for

hypothyroidism Hypothyroidism is an endocrine disease in which the thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormones. It can cause a number of symptoms, such as cold intolerance, poor ability to tolerate cold, fatigue, extreme fatigue, muscle aches, co ...

Sonata In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...

, a sleeping aid, and Skelaxin, a

muscle relaxant A muscle relaxant is a drug that affects skeletal muscle function and decreases the muscle tone. It may be used to alleviate symptoms such as muscle spasms, pain, and hyperreflexia. The term "muscle relaxant" is used to refer to two major therapeu ...

. King Pharmaceuticals operated manufacturing facilities in

;

Rochester, Michigan Rochester is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 12,711 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is a northern suburb in Metro Detroit located 20 miles north of the city of ...

;

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

;

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the List of municipalities in Florida, fifth-most populous city in Florida and the most populous city in the sta ...

; and

Middleton, Wisconsin Middleton is a city in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 21,827 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. A suburb northwest of Madison, Wisconsin, Madison, it is part of the Madison metropolitan area. Middleton's mo ...

. They employed approximately 2,700 people including a sales force of over 1,000 individuals. King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was incorporated in the State of Tennessee in 1993. According to the King Pharmaceutcals, Inc. Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the wholly owned subsidiaries of King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. are Monarch Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; King Pharmaceuticals Research and Development, Inc.; Meridian Medical Technologies, Inc.; Parkedale Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; King Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc.; and Monarch Pharmaceuticals Ireland Limited.

Company history

King Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1993 John M. Gregory, Randal J. Kirk, Joseph "Joe" R. Gregory, Jefferson "Jeff" J. Gregory, and James E. Gregory. In January 1994, King acquired a former King College campus plant in Bristol, Tennessee. The facility was purchased for $1.18 million from RSR Pharmaceutical, who had been using it after Beecham merged with

SmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, wh ...

. King initially manufactured drugs for other pharmaceutical companies, but soon established a strategy of acquiring branded prescription drugs, which have a much higher gross margin than contract manufactured drugs. In February 1998, King acquired 15 branded pharmaceuticals, a sterile products manufacturing facility located in Rochester, Michigan that it called the "Parkedale Facility") and some contract manufacturing contracts. By December 1998 King had placed its sterile products business into a subsidiary it named Parkedale Pharmaceuticals. King Pharmaceuticals obtained about twenty smaller branded drugs from the start up of the company until it went public in June 1998. The King Pharmaceuticals subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals acquired one of its most profitable branded drugs, Altace, later the same year on December 18, 1998 from Hoechst Marion Roussel.

U.S. marketing and distribution rights to Altace

Hoechst merged with Marion Merrill Dow of Kansas City, Missouri in 1995, forming the Hoechst U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR). Altace was bringing in under $90 million in U.S. revenues for HMR and Hoechst had stopped promoting Altace within the United States.,"Faith Healers: The born-again Gregory brothers worked a financial miracle from cast-off drug brands"
Forbes. Zina Moukheiber. October 28, 2002. and King Pharmaceuticals President Jefferson "Jeff" Gregory also began negotiations in 1995 with Hoechst to acquire U.S. distribution rights to Altace. The King Pharmaceuticals wholly owned subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (another brother of John Gregory - Joseph Gregory - was then the president of Monarch Pharmaceuticals) acquired ownership of the U.S. distribution and marketing rights to Altace and other Hoechst products from Hoechst AG subsidiary Hoechst Marion Roussel of Kansas City, Missouri on December 18, 1998, and following a January 1999 merger a few weeks later with

Rhône-Poulenc Rhône-Poulenc () was a French chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in 1928. In 1999, it merged with Hoechst AG to form Aventis. As of 2015, the pharmaceutical operations of Rhône-Poulenc are part of Sanofi and the chemicals divisions ...

, Hoechst assumed the new corporate identity of

Aventis Sanofi S.A. is a French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. The corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 2004, Sanofi-Synthélabo merg ...

). In 2001, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine ranked John Gregory among the 400 richest Americans. The bulk of Gregory's personal fortune was due in large part due to the ability of King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to reintroduce the Hoechst branded prescription drug Altace back into the U.S. market under the King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals brand following the 1998 U.S. marketing and distribution agreement between King Pharmaceuticals/Monarch Pharmaceuticals and Hoechst AG/HMR. In late December 1998, King Pharmaceuticals (d.b.a. Monarch Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) purchased the U.S. marketing and distribution rights of the company's most successful drug, Altace, for $362.5 million from the U.S. subsidiary of

Hoechst AG Hoechst AG () was a German chemicals, later life sciences, company that became Aventis Deutschland after its merger with France's Rhône-Poulenc S.A. in 1999. With the new company's 2004 merger with Sanofi-Synthélabo, it became a subsidiar ...

, Hoechst Marion Roussel of Kansas City. As a result of increasing the number of sales representatives and the findings of the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE), Altace sales increased. Using profits from Altace, King continued to add product lines, the most significant purchases being Levoxyl,

Thrombin Prothrombin (coagulation factor II) is encoded in the human by the F2-gene. It is proteolytically cleaved during the clotting process by the prothrombinase enzyme complex to form thrombin. Thrombin (Factor IIa) (, fibrose, thrombase, throm ...

, and

Cytomel Liothyronine is a manufactured form of the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine (T3). It is most commonly used to treat hypothyroidism and myxedema coma. It can be taken by mouth or by injection into a vein. Side effects may occur from excessiv ...

in 2000. Also in 2000, seeing fewer opportunities to obtain branded drugs, the company acquired an R&D company based in North Carolina. In 2002, King and

Meridian Medical Technologies Meridian Medical Technologies, LLC is an American company which specialized primarily in developing and manufacturing antidotes for chemical weapons. It was founded in 1968 as Brunswick Biomedical Corporation and changed its name in November 199 ...

agreed that King would purchase Merdian for $247.8 million in cash; Meridian was a manufacturer of autoinjectors, including EpiPen, an

epinephrine autoinjector An epinephrine autoinjector (or adrenaline autoinjector, also known by the trademark EpiPen) is a medical device for injecting a measured dose or doses of epinephrine (adrenaline) by means of autoinjector technology. It is most often used for t ...

. The deal was completed in January 2003. In 2002, John Gregory stepped down as CEO, and his brother Jefferson Gregory took over. Then in 2004, Jeff Gregory stepped down as well after the SEC began investigations into King's Medicaid billing practices. The board named Brian Markison to replace him. Soon after, in July 2004, a deal was made for Mylan Laboratories to acquire King for $4 billion. Investors, most notably

Carl Icahn Carl Celian Icahn (; born February 16, 1936) is an American businessman and investor. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach, ...

, were critical of the merger, saying that Mylan was overpaying for King. The next year the deal was called off. In 2008 King Pharmaceuticals acquired Alpharma Pharmaceuticals to expand into the pain treatment market. From the acquisition, King gained the patents on the pain management drugs, Flector and Embeda. They also gained a completely separate animal health division, which focuses on the many agricultural and animal health needs of livestock animals.

Acquisition

On October 12, 2010,

Inc. () announced it would acquire Bristol-based King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for a total cost to Pfizer of $3.6 billion in cash or $14.25 per share. The acquisition was expected to expand Pfizer's product line of pain relief and management medication by adding King products such as Embeda, Avinza, and the Flector Patch. Other product lines that made King attractive to Pfizer included the

EpiPen An epinephrine autoinjector (or adrenaline autoinjector, also known by the trademark EpiPen) is a medical device for injecting a measured dose or doses of Epinephrine (medication), epinephrine (adrenaline) by means of autoinjector technology. It ...

for emergency delivery of medications and the Alpharma animal health line.

References

External links

King Pharmaceuticals
{{Pharmaceutical companies of the United States Pharmaceutical companies disestablished in 2010 Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Defunct pharmaceutical companies of the United States Health care companies based in Tennessee Defunct companies based in Tennessee Pfizer Life sciences industry 2010 mergers and acquisitions Bristol, Tennessee Pharmaceutical companies established in 1994