G.D. Searle, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

. It is currently a trademark company and subsidiary of Pfizer, operating in more than 43 countries. It also operates as a distribution trademark for various pharmaceuticals that were developed by G. D. Searle & Company (often referred to as Searle). Searle is most notable for having developed the first female

birth control pill The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control that is designed to be taken orally by women. The pill contains two important hormones: progesti ...

, and the artificial sweetener

NutraSweet The NutraSweet Company is an American nutrient company that produces and markets NutraSweet Neotame, their trademarked brand name for the high-intensity sweetener neotame. In 2021, NutraSweet was placed 43rd by FoodTalks' list of Top 50 Global S ...

. Searle also invented the drug

Lomotil Diphenoxylate/atropine, also known as co-phenotrope, is a combination of the medications diphenoxylate and atropine, used to treat diarrhea. It should not be used in those in whom ''Clostridioides difficile'' infection is a concern. It is take ...

that enabled space travel by humans, and was the drug taken by Neil Armstrong to stop bowel movements prior to the Apollo Program. One of the notable Alumni of Searle is Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of State for Bush in the 2000s and the mastermind behind

preemptive war A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived imminent offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war ''shortly before'' that attack materializes. I ...

. Prior to its 1985 merger with

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in ...

, Searle was a company mainly focusing on life sciences, specifically pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and animal health.

History

In ,

Gideon Daniel Searle Gideon Daniel Searle (February 13, 1846 Randolph County, Indiana - January 22, 1917 Chicago, Illinois) was a druggist and the founder of pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle, LLC. The company was founded in Omaha, Nebraska in 1888, moved to Chicago i ...

founded Searle in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. The company incorporated in 1908 and established headquarters in

Skokie, Illinois Skokie (; formerly Niles Center) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, neighboring the City of Chicago's northern border. Its population, according to the 2020 census, was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately north of Chicago's do ...

in 1941. Between 1977 and 1985, Donald Rumsfeld served as CEO, and then as president, of Searle. In 1985, he engineered the acquisition of Searle by

Corporation. Starting in 1979, Robert B. Shapiro acted as general counsel for the firm, where developing Searle's aspartame product under the brand name

. In 1993, a team of researchers at Searle Research and Development filed a patent application for

celecoxib Celecoxib, sold under the brand name Celebrex among others, is a COX-2 inhibitor and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). It is used to treat the pain and inflammation in osteoarthritis, acute pain in adults, rheumatoid arthritis, ankyl ...

, which Searle developed and which became the first selective COX-2 inhibitor to be approved by the FDA on December 31, 1998. Control of this blockbuster drug was often mentioned as a key reason for Pfizer's acquisition of Pharmacia. In April 2000, Pharmacia Corporation was created by merging Pharmacia & Upjohn (which had come about as the result of an earlier merger of the companies Pharmacia and

Upjohn The Upjohn Company was a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm founded in 1886 in Hastings, Michigan, by Dr. William E. Upjohn who was an 1875 graduate of the University of Michigan medical school. The company was originally formed to make ''friabl ...

) with Monsanto and its Searle unit. The merged company was based in Peapack, New Jersey. In 2003, Pfizer acquired Pharmacia and retired the Searle name, while still in many Asian and European countries Searle persists under the same name, in various variants.

Products

The company manufactures prescription drugs and nuclear medicine imaging equipment. Searle is known for its release of

Enovid Mestranol/norethynodrel was the first combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP) being mestranol and norethynodrel. It sold as Enovid in the United States and as Enavid in the United Kingdom. Developed by Gregory Pincus at G. D. Searle & Company ...

, the first commercial oral contraceptive, in 1960. It is also known for its release of the first bulk laxative, Metamucil, in 1934;

Dramamine Dimenhydrinate, sold under the brand name Dramamine, among others, is an over-the-counter drug used to treat motion sickness and nausea. Dimenhydrinate is a theoclate salt composed of diphenhydramine, an ethanolamine derivative, and 8-chloro ...

, for motion sickness; the COX-2 inhibitors Celebrex and Bextra;

Ambien Zolpidem, sold under the brand name Ambien, among others, is a medication primarily used for the short-term treatment of sleeping problems. Guidelines recommend that it be used only after cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and behavioral ...

for insomnia; and

(also known as aspartame), an artificial sweetener, in 1965. It was released in 1981 by FDA. In 1996, the FDA removed all restrictions on the use of aspartame, which enabled its use in heated and baked goods. G. D. Searle's patent on aspartame was extended in 1981 and ultimately expired in December 1992.

References

External links

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The Pill
{{Authority control Biotechnology companies of the United States Companies based in Skokie, Illinois History of Chicago Pharmaceutical companies of the United States Pfizer Pharmaceutical companies established in 1888 Health care companies based in New York (state) 1985 mergers and acquisitions 1888 establishments in Nebraska American corporate subsidiaries