1953

Merger of Rahway, NJ-based Merck and Baltimore-based Sharp & Dohme (which had acquired H. K. Mulford in 1929 and acquired Mulford’s line of vaccines and serum antitoxins). Sharp & Dohme’s first success was sulfathiazole, a heterocyclic derivative of sulfanilamide that was as effective as sulfapyridine against bacterial pneumonia (Lesch III, 202). Merck centralized all R&D under the Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories in 1956, and appointed Max Tischler president of MSDRL in 1957 (Galambos & Sewell, 56-58), and Tischler appointed Maurice Hilleman director of Virus and Cell Biology Research in the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research (64ff.). Expansion of both firms since the 1930s was squarely based on the sulfa drugs