Don’t Sweep Pharma’s Past Under The Rug

As A LONG-AGO-retired organic chemist, I read the article on contract research organizations with interest (C&EN, Dec. 8, 2008, page 38). It is pleasing to find out that chemists who lost their jobs in big pharma have found employment in independent laboratories. On the other hand, the article left me feeling that some of my past is being swept under the rug.

The Pfizer location in Ann Arbor, Mich., was better known to chemists of my generation first as Parke-Davis and later Warner-Lambert. The labs in Kalamazoo, Mich., that Pfizer acquired from Pharmacia—where I plied my craft for some 17 years—were known as Upjohn. That company, founded in the late-19th century, represented an admirable provider of drugs as well as a leader in pharmaceutical research.

Dan Lednicer
Rockville, Md.