G. D. Searle & Company

G.D. Searle & Company or just Searle was a company focusing on life sciences, specifically pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and animal health. It is now part of Pfizer.

History
Searle was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1888. The founder was Gideon Daniel Searle. In 1908, the company was incorporated in Chicago. In 1941, the company established headquarters in Skokie, Illinois. It was acquired by the Monsanto Company in 1985. Pharmacia Corporation was created in April 2000 through the merger of Pharmacia & Upjohn (itself the result of the merger of Pharmacia and Upjohn) with the Monsanto Company and its G.D. Searle unit. The merged company was based in Peapack, New Jersey. Pfizer acquired Pharmacia in 2003 and retired the Searle name.

Robert B. Shapiro acted as general counsel for the firm from 1979 onwards, where he went on develop Searle's aspartame product under the brand name NutraSweet. He became CEO of its NutraSweet subsidiary in 1982.

G.D. Searle & Company's chairman was William L. Searle until 1985. Directors of G.D. Searle included Andre M. de Staercke, Reuben Richards, and Arthur Wood.

Donald Rumsfeld served as CEO, and then as President, of Searle between 1977 and 1985. During his tenure at Searle, Rumsfeld downsized the number of employees in the company by 60% and was instrumental in getting aspartame approved by the FDA. Searle denies that Chairman Rumsfeld ever had any contact with the FDA, or the Carter and Reagan administrations, to lobby for aspartame. But the Wall Street Journal article reported in 1977 that Rumsfeld "keenly understands the importance of a public image. So he has been mending fences with the FDA by personally asking top agency officials what Searle should do to straighten out its reputation." Westley M. Dixon, Searle's vice chairman, told the Journal that without Rumsfeld "we wouldn't have gotten approval for Norpace," a drug investigated by the FDA in 1975.

In 1985, Rumsfeld played an instrumental role in the acquisition of G.D. Searle & Company by Monsanto.

Notable products
The company manufactured prescription drugs and nuclear medicine imaging equipment. Searle is known for its release of Enovid, the first commercial oral contraceptive, in 1960. It is also known for its release of the first bulk laxative, Metamucil, in 1934; Dramamine, for motion sickness; the COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex; Ambien for insomnia; and NutraSweet, an artificial sweetener, in 1965. It was released in 1981 by FDA.

In 1996, the FDA removed all restrictions on the use of aspartame, which enabled its use in heated and baked goods. G.D. Searle's patent on aspartame was extended in 1981 and ultimately expired in December 1992.