ABC#058 Big Pharma & Laurel Hill: The Beginnings

Several multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies got their starts in Philadelphia as neighborhood drug stores. 

Weightman, Powers, and Rosengarten made their money by selling quinine to the US government. 

James Smith and Clayton French did not know each and both started as neighborhood druggists; but family and business partners kept their businesses going and their names prominent long after their deaths. 

The Wyeth Brothers invented a machine that standardized the size of pills and tablets, and William Warner learned how to sugarcoat them.  Warner’s pharmacopeia was distributed internationally and served as the standard reference for doctors and pharmacists for years. 

And McNeil Laboratories introduced Tylenol Elixir for Children in 1955, then watched it become one of the best-selling over-the-counter meds of all time. 

Robert McNeil is interred at Laurel Hill West, while all the others are at Laurel Hill East.