1899

Following Bayer’s Hoffman’s success in making acetyl salicylic acid that neutralized the chemical element of salicylic acid responsible for its gastric (acidic) side effects (found in salicin, salicylic acid, and sodium salicylate), Bayer releases aspirin in July, 1899, though it is patented only in UK and US. Bayer lost UK patent in 1905 in court battle with Chemische Fabrik Von Heyden, causing it to fall back on its “aspirin” trademark, pushing the brand name with all its might (Jeffreys, 64-90). In 1915, British Board of Trade made the word “aspirin” public property, meaning anyone could sell acetylsalicylic acid as aspirin, though British wartime product was vastly inferior to Bayer. Australia followed suit with its “Nicholas Aspirin (renamed Aspro in 1917) (98-107). With U.S. patent expiring in 1917 and tainted by the Great Phenol Plot (109-114), Bayer begins marketing aspirin direct to U.S. consumers; AMA is outraged and drops Bayer aspirin from its list of recommended meds (114-115). American manufacturers (Dow Chemical and Monsanto) were ready to begin producing “aspirin” as soon as Bayer patent expired; Americans had consumed almost two million pounds of aspirin with retail value of $25 million between 1914-1917 (115-116). After German surrender on 11 November 1918, Bayer’s U.S. interests put up for sale and were bought for a little over $5.3 million by Sterling Products, a quack medicine maker (122). Sterling got Bayer’s Rensselaer plant, its dyestuffs business and U.S. sales and production rights to 64 of its most impressive meds (145). In 1920, Judge Learned Hand ruled that for general public, word “aspirin” had passed into common usage and consumers had right to buy the drug under that name from anyone who made it (151-152)  explosion of competition in U.S. with several hundred brands of aspirin on sale within 10 years. In 1923, Sterling and German Bayer made deal: Sterling’s Winthrop Chemical Co. to make all Farbenfabriken products in America and would get German Bayer’s help on how to run Rensselaer. Germans would get half profits in return, though Sterling Bayer had exclusive rights to sell those products in U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada, and South Africa (149-150).