BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB CO

Squibb

The Squibb corporation was founded in 1858 by Edward Robinson Squibb in Brooklyn, New York after resigning from his assistant surgeon post from the U.S. Navy. The company started operating in a small brick laboratory in Brooklyn. It was reported that the nascent company almost closed upon its opening as the facility burned down on Christmas Eve of 1858. While the laboratory was destroyed, a group of doctors and surgeons helped Squibb reopen in 1859 by subscribing $2,100. The business survived and flourished.

Squibb was known as an advocate of quality control and high purity standards early within the pharmaceutical industry. He went on to self-publish an alternative to the U.S. Pharmacopeia titled Squibb's Ephemeris of Materia Medica, after failing to convince the American Medical Association to incorporate higher purity standards.

Materia Medica, Squibb products, and Edward Squibb's opinion on the fundamentals of pharmacy are found in many medical papers of the late 1800s. The American Journal of Pharmacy published more than one hundred papers of Squibb's research surrounding the industry. When Squibb's health deteriorated, management was passed down to his sons, Charles and Edward. By 1895, the company officially became E.R. Squibb & Sons.

The sons of Edward Squibb sold the company to Lowell M. Palmer and Theodore Weicker in 1905, who incorporated the company. Around this time, the Squibb logo was developed, which represented the company's products of "uniformity, purity, efficacy, and reliability based on research."

Squibb Corporation served as a major supplier of medical goods to the Union Army during the American Civil War, providing portable medical kits containing morphine, surgical anesthetics, and quinine for the treatment of malaria (which was endemic in most of the Eastern United States at that time).

In 1944, Squibb opened the world's largest penicillin plant in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Bristol-Myers

In 1887, Hamilton College graduates William McLaren Bristol and John Ripley Myers purchased the Clinton Pharmaceutical company of Clinton, New York. In May 1898, they decided to rename it Bristol, Myers and Company. Following Myers' death in 1899, Bristol changed the name to the Bristol-Myers Corporation.

During the 1890s, the company introduced its first nationally recognized product Sal Hepatica, a laxative mineral salt, followed by Ipana toothpaste in 1901. Other divisions were Clairol (hair colors and haircare) and Drackett (household products such as Windex and Drano ).

In 1943, Bristol-Myers acquired Cheplin Biological Laboratories, a producer of acidophilus milk in East Syracuse, New York, and converted the plant to produce penicillin for the World War II Allied forces. After the war, the company renamed the plant Bristol Laboratories in 1945 and entered the civilian antibiotics market, where it faced competition from Squibb.

Penicillin production at the East Syracuse plant ended in 2005, when it became less expensive to produce overseas. As of 2010, the facility was used for the manufacturing process development and production of other biologic medicines for clinical trials and commercial use.

Merger

In 1989, Bristol-Myers and Squibb merged and became Bristol-Myers Squibb.

In 1999, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded Bristol-Myers Squibb the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest recognition for technological achievement, "for extending, and enhancing human life through innovative pharmaceutical research and development and for redefining the science of clinical study through groundbreaking and hugely complex clinical trials that are recognized models in the industry."

2000 to 2010

In July 2006, the FBI raided the company's corporate offices on charges of collusion centered on the distribution of Plavix On 12 September 2006, the monitor, former Federal Judge Frederick B. Lacey, urged the company to remove then-CEO Peter Dolan over the Plavix dispute. Later that day, BMS announced that Dolan would indeed step down. The deferred prosecution agreement expired in June 2007 and the Department of Justice did not take any further legal action against the company for matters covered by the DPA. Under CEO Jim Cornelius, who was CEO following Dolan until May 2010, all executives involved in the "channel-stuffing" and generic competition scandals have since left the company.

In 2009, the company began a major restructuring focusing on the pharmaceutical business and biologic products, along with productivity initiatives and cost-cutting and streamlining business operations through a multiyear program of on-going layoffs. This was part of a business strategy launched in 2007 to transform the company from a large, diversified pharmaceutical company to a specialty biopharma company, which also included the closure of half of its manufacturing facilities. As another cost-cutting measure, Bristol-Myers Squibb also reduced health-care subsidies for retirees and planned to freeze their pension plan at the end of 2009.

Lamberto Andreotti was named CEO in 2010; he had previously served as president and COO

2010-present

In 2010, Lou Schmukler joined Bristol-Myers Squibb as the president of global product development and design. Schmukler led the team that completed the company's strategic transformation to a specialty biopharmaceutical company that had begun in 2007. As of 2011, the company had a dozen manufacturing facilities and six product development sites.

The company was ranked as the best drug company of 2013 by Forbes magazine.

In December 2014, the company received FDA approval for the use of the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) in treating patients whose skin cancer cannot be removed or have not responded to previous drug therapies. In February 2015, the company initiated a research partnership with Rigel Pharmaceuticals which could generate more than $339 million. In March, the company obtained an exclusive opportunity to both licence and commercialise PROSTVAC, Bavarian Nordic 's phase III prostate-specific antigen targeting cancer immunotherapy. Bavarian Nordic would receive an upfront payment of $60 million and incremental payments up to $230 million, if the overall survival of test patients exceeds that seen in Phase II tests. Bavarian could also receive milestone payments of between $110 million and $495 million, dependent on regulatory authorization, and these payments have the potential to total up to $975 million.

In May 2015, Giovanni Caforio became CEO of the company; Caforio was formerly the company's COO and succeeded Lamberto Andreotti upon his retirement. Andreotti subsequently succeeded James Cornelius as Executive Chairman upon his retirement.