Search Tip: Using the Company Name Thesaurus to track mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical industry
The pharmaceutical industry has seen an unprecedented number of mergers and acquisitions in recent years. The reasons for this trend are numerous. Under pressure to continue delivering double-digit investment returns, pharmaceutical companies search for new ways to grow revenue and strengthen pipelines. The rapid approach of patent expiration and skyrocketing drug development costs have spurred a rethinking of ways to supplement drug pipelines and strengthen positions in specific market segments. Alliance and acquisition are now considered to be alternative solutions, in addition to the traditional research and development model.
Knowledge of an organization's name(s) and those of its subsidiaries is essential when evaluating a potential acquisition target. A company's patents are key in determining valuation, but patents can be assigned to a subsidiary and not the parent company. Valuation of a company can, therefore, be difficult without knowing the names of an organization's subsidiaries. In addition, the names of organizations frequently change and different forms of a name may be used concurrently. Occasionally, names disappear altogether and are replaced by newly coined ones, as occurred in 1996 when Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz became Novartis. When you find yourself in need of these types of information, the Company Name Thesaurus search aid can help.
Company Name Information
STN's specialized search aid, the Company Name Thesaurus, can help you find permutations of company names, identify subsidiaries, and understand a company's history. Available in the CASM/CAplusSM family of databases, it can help you identify related forms of many major companies' names as well as other terms used to designate a particular organization. The following search examples show the impact the Company Name Thesaurus can have on your STN search results.
Tip: For queries that include many search terms, consider using the HCAplus database. Although the connection fee is higher than that charged for CAplus, there is no fee associated with individual search terms. So, you can search as many terms as you like, without incurring any search term charges.
In 2000, the merger of Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKlineBeecham (each resulting from earlier mergers) created GlaxoSmithKline. When you begin designing a search query to identify records for which GSK is the corporate source, a number of variations on the name may readily spring to mind: Glaxo SmithKline, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo, GSK. A search for references with all of these four names in the Company Name (CO) field in CAplus produces 1486 records.
=> FIL HCAPLUS
=> S (GLAXO SMITHKLINE OR GLAXOSMITHKLINE OR GLAXO OR GSK)/CO
21 GLAXO SMITHKLINE/CO
1444 GLAXOSMITHKLINE/CO
14 GLAXO/CO
7 GSK/CO
L1 1486 (GLAXO SMITHKLINE OR GLAXOSMITHKLINE OR GLAXO OR GSK)/CO
EXPAND command
The EXPAND command in STN lists terms in a search index that are adjacent to the requested term. This provides additional terms that you may consider including in a search query.
By using EXPAND in the Company Name (CO) field, 288 variations for Glaxo SmithKline are found. If your search includes all of these variations you retrieve 4475 records - more than 3 times the number of records retrieved in the original search.
=> E GLAXO SMITHKLINE/CO 25
E# FREQ. AT TERM
-- ----- -- ----
E1 1 GLAXO SMITH KLINE PHARM/CO
E2 1 GLAXO SMITH KLINE S P A/CO
E3 21 2 --> GLAXO SMITHKLINE/CO
.
.
E24 1 GLAXO WELLCOME CELL BIOLOGY UNIT/CO
E25 1 GLAXO WELLCOME CENTRE DE RECHERCHES/CO
=> E E25
E26 7 2 GLAXO WELLCOME /CO
.
E28 1 GLAXO WELLCOME DEPARTMENT OF METABOLIC DISEASES
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK/CO
.
.
E137 1444 394 GLAXOSMITHKLINE/CO
.
E287 1 GLAXOWELLCOME SEPARATION SCIENCE GROUP/CO
E288 11 2 GLAXOWELLCOME SPA/CO
=> S E1-E288
L2 4475 ("GLAXO SMITH KLINE PHARM"/CO OR "GLAXO SMITHKLINE
PHARMACEUTICALS"/CO OR "GLAXO WELCOME"/CO OR "GLAXO WELLCOME
CANADA"/CO OR )
Subsidiaries and predecessors
An understanding of the history of a potential acquisition target is important when making a strategic business decision. This information can be difficult to obtain because a company's history of mergers and acquisitions is often complex and convoluted. The Company Name Thesaurus gives you (when available) a chronological sequence of some of the organizations involved in a company's formation, helping you to compile a historical timeline.
=> E GLAXOSMITHKLINE/CO
E# FREQUENCY AT TERM
-- --------- -- ----
E1 1 GLAXOSMITH KLINE ISTRAZIVOCKI CENTAR ZAGREB D O O/CO
E2 1 GLAXOSMITH KLINE PHARMACEUTICALS/CO
E3 1444 394 --> GLAXOSMITHKLINE/CO
=> E E3+ALL
E1 0 CNUM CAS1001768/CO
E2 1444 --> GLAXOSMITHKLINE/CO
NOTES 1715: Allen & Hanburys Ltd. established
1841: John K. Smith & Co. formed
1842: Beecham Pills Ltd. founded
1843: Cooper, McDougall & Robertson Ltd. founded
1875: John K. Smith & Co. renamed Smith, Kline & Co.
1880: Burroughs Wellcome & Co. established
1891: Smith, Kline & Co. acquired French, Richards & Co.
1902: Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories
established
1919: Macleans Ltd. established
1924: Wellcome Foundation Ltd. established
1925: Wm. Cooper & Nephews, Ltd. and McDougall &
Robertson Ltd. merged to form Cooper, McDougall
& Robertson Ltd.
1929: Smith, Kline & Co. renamed Smith Kline & French
Laboratories
1930: Glaxo Laboratories formed
1936: Wellcome Trust founded
1938: Beecham Pills Ltd. acquired Macleans Ltd.
1945: Beecham Pills Ltd. renamed Beecham Group Ltd.
1945: Recherche et Industrie Therapeutiques founded
1948: Bio-Science Laboratories established
1949: Beecham Group Ltd. acquired C.L. Bencard Ltd.
1949: Beecham Group Ltd. acquired CL Bencard Ltd.
1958: Glaxo Laboratories Ltd. acquired Allen & Hanburys
Ltd.
1959: Wellcome Trust acquired Cooper, McDougall &
Robertson Ltd.
1960: Smith, Kline & French Laboratories acquired Norden
Laboratories
1963: Smith, Kline & French Laboratories acquired
Recherche et Industrie Therapeutiques (RIT)
1969: Recherche et Industrie Therapeutiques renamed
SmithKline-RIT
1976: SmithKline Corp. acquired Penicillin-Gesellschaft
Dauelsberg & Co.
1978: Beecham Group PLC acquired Johann A. Wulfing AG
1978: Glaxo Laboratories Ltd. acquired Meyer Laboratories
Inc.
1978: Glaxo Laboratories Ltd. renamed Glaxo Inc.
1985: Bio-Science Laboratories renamed SmithKline Bio-
Science Laboratories
1985: SmithKline Beckman acquired Bio-Science
Laboratories
1986: Beecham Group Ltd. acquired Norcliff Thayer, Inc.
1989: SmithKline Beckman and Beecham Group Ltd. merge to
form SmithKline Beecham PLC
1989: SmithKline Bio-Science Laboratories renamed
SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories
1989: SmithKline BioScience Laboratories acquired
International Clinical Laboratories, Inc.
1989: SmithKline-RIT renamed SmithKline Beecham
Biologicals
1994: SmithKline Beecham PLC acquired Diversified
Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.
1995: Glaxo Inc. and Burroughs Wellcome & Co. merged to
form Glaxo Wellcome
1996: Block Drug Co., Inc. acquired full ownership of
Kobayashi Block Co., Ltd.
1996: SmithKline Beecham Healthcare Services formed
1997: SmithKline Beecham PLC and Incyte Pharmaceuticals
Inc. formed joint venture, diaDexus Inc.
1998: Glaxo Wellcome acquired Poznanskie Zaklady
Farmaceutyczne Polfa
2000: Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham PLC merged to
form GlaxoSmithKline
2001: GlaxoSmithKline acquired Block Drug Co., Inc.
In addition to being cited in the chronological timeline, the names of an organization's subsidiaries and predecessors are included in the Company Name Thesaurus and can be used as search terms. One of the results of using the EXPAND command for the name GlaxoSmithKline (E137) shows 394 terms associated with the entry "GlaxoSmithKline" in the Company Name Thesaurus. Some of those associated terms are shown below.
E# FREQ. AT TERM
-- ----- -- ----
E137 1444 394 GLAXOSMITHKLINE/CO
Displaying these associated terms shows organizations, including predecessors and subsidiaries, associated with GlaxoSmithKline. Many of these do not contain any portion of the original term, "GlaxoSmithKline." For example, Burroughs Wellcome and Glaxo Laboratories merged in 1995 to form GlaxoWellcome, which subsequently merged with SmithKline Beecham in 2000, forming the present day organization, GlaxoSmithKline. The acquisition of Norden Laboratories moved GSK into the animal health business. Block Drug Company, Inc. was acquired in 2001 and is now part of their consumer health division. You can use the Company Name Thesaurus to identify all of these companies as being associated with GlaxoSmithKline.
=> E E137+ALL
E10 3 RT1 BEECHAM/CO
.
.
E53 51 RT1 BLOCK DRUG CO INC/CO
.
.
E57 11 RT1 BURROUGHS WELLCOME/CO
.
.
E120 475 RT1 GLAXO LABORATORIES LTD/CO
E121 25 RT1 GLAXO LABS/CO
.
.
E155 21 RT1 GLAXO SMITHKLINE/CO
.
E227 325 RT1 GLAXOSMITHKLINE PHARMACEUTICALS/CO
.
E241 26 RT1 GLAXOWELLCOME/CO
.
.
E275 12 RT1 NORDEN LABORATORIES INC/CO
.
.
E327 211 RT1 SMITHKLINE BEECHAM/CO
.
.
E378 9 RT1 SMITHKLINE PHARMACEUTICALS/CO
.
.
E388 143 RT1 WELLCOME RESEARCH LABORATORIES/CO
Searching all of the associated terms retrieves over 32,000 records. This dramatic increase over the two previous search examples demonstrates the value that the Company Name Thesaurus can add to your search strategy.
=> S GLAXOSMITHKLINE+ALL/CO
L3 32170 GLAXOSMITHKLINE+ALL/CO (394 TERMS)
You can also reap the benefits of the Company Name Thesaurus in databases beyond the CA/CAplus family. The terms retrieved with the Company Name Thesaurus can be searched in database clusters or other STN databases that do not include this search aid. For example, after expanding on the term of interest in the Company Name Thesaurus in a CA/CAplus database, you can enter other database(s) and search the desired E-numbers in the Company Name (CO) field, if it is available, or the Corporate Source(CS) field.
Conclusion
As the pharmaceutical industry evolves to include strategic alliances as ways to augment pipelines with innovative products and technologies, the trend of mergers and acquisitions is likely to continue. Using the Company Name Thesaurus search aid can increase your confidence that searches take into account variations of a company's name, its predecessors, and its subsidiaries.
Additional resources
For more information about using the Company Name Thesaurus, see:
To determine the availability of thesauri in a specific database, enter HELP THESAURUS at an arrow prompt (=>) in that database.
Updated: 8/7/2007 10:53:16 AM
