Pfizer Inc.

Pfizer Inc. was founded in 1849 by cousins Charles Pfizer, a chemist, and Charles Erhart, a confectioner. Recent immigrants to Brooklyn, N.Y. from Germany, the cousins opened their business under the name Charles Pfizer & Company in a red-brick building in the Town of Williamsburgh, now the neighborhood of Williamsburg in the borough of Brooklyn. Their first successful product was a form of santonin covered in an almond toffee flavoring that was used to treat intestinal worms. During the Civil War, Pfizer supplied vital medical treatments (namely tartaric acid and cream of tartar) to the Union Army, which propelled a period of unprecedented growth and success for the company. In 1881 Pfizer moved its headquarters to a post-Revolutionary-era building at 81 Maiden Lane in Manhattan, and in 1882 it expanded to the Midwest, opening offices in Chicago, IL. By 1899 Pfizer was an established leader in the American chemical industry, producing such products as citric acid, borax, cream of tartar, and iodine.

The 20th century saw further innovation in Pfizer's product base. In 1919, Pfizer chemists James Currie and Jasper Kane developed a method of mold fermentation that allowed the company to mass-produce citric acid from sugar. In 1936, Pfizer became the world's leading producer of vitamin C, and by the late 1940s the company was the world leader in the production of all vitamins. In 1941, in response to an appeal from the United States Government, Pfizer began producing penicillin (commonly referred to at the time as "the miracle drug") for the treatment of Allied Soldiers during World War II, and was the only company to do so by utilizing the fermentation techniques developed by Currie and Kane. By 1944, Pfizer had developed a method of producing penicillin on a mass scale, and the company became an instrumental player in the worldwide treatment of many previously untreatable bacterial infections. Through this contribution to medicine, Pfizer cemented its position as one of the world's most distinguished leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, a reputation it would continue to uphold throughout the rest of the 20th century.

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