Parke-Davis Opens Research Labs Company starts 1960 with record sales and earnings, a new $13.5 million research complex

First quarter sales and earnings for Parke-Davis hit record levels this year. Sales jumped to $53.4 million, 19% over 1959's first quarter, and net rose to $9.6 million, up 38%. P-D's sales for all of 1960 should be 12% higher than last year, earnings 15% higher, president Harry J. Loynd told some 1000 stockholders gathered at Ann Arbor, Mich., last week for the com­pany's annual meeting.

Successful new products and fast-climbing sales overseas are two big reasons for the good showing, Mr. Loynd says. And stockholders got on-the-spot proof the company doesn't plan to rest on past laurels. Right after the meeting, P-D dedicated its new $13.5 million research lab, the biggest single investment the company has ever made.

Research took a foothold at Parke-Davis nearly 60 years ago—in 1902 the company built in Detroit its first build­ing devoted to scientific research. A steady parade of new products fol­

lowed. Among the milestones: Thee-lin, the first steroid hormone, intro­duced in 1930; Promin, the first really effective drug against leprosy, mar­keted in the U.S. in 1946. Three years later P-D scored with Chloro­mycetin, a broad spectrum antibiotic which is made synthetically; today Chloromycetin accounts for nearly a third of P-D's sales. The 93-year-old company now sells some 450 products.

Backing this active research pro­gram has been a steady outpouring of money for research and development and for new plant and equipment. Spending for R&D totaled about $2.7 million a decade ago. With the ex­ception of a slight dip in 1954, R&D outlays have shown a steady climb. Year-to-year increases have averaged close to 25%.

Capital spending follows much the same pattern. Some $3.6 million went into new plant and equipment in 1950. Outlays nearly doubled in 1951. Dur­ing the next five years, spending was

somewhat reduced, but in 1957 the $6 million level was touched again and more than twice this amount was spent in 1958. P-D has ticketed some $60 million for new plant and equipment over the next five years.

More Space for Research. P-D's new research complex required five years to complete from the date plan­ning started; actual construction took two years. The facility has more than 250,000 square feet of floor space, a 115% increase in area devoted to R&D.

The lab building for the chemistry and pharmacology departments is the biggest of the five new units at Ann Arbor-330 feet by 127 feet. It has 93 lab rooms, 54 animal and utility rooms, and several offices and shops. Much attention has been given to tempera­ture and humidity control. Besides being air conditioned, the building is faced with aluminum and glass cur­tain walls containing a special heat-absorbing gray glass. In addition, a continuous corridor along the exterior wall provides sun control and acts as a buffer against extremes of temperature and humidity.

Standing somewhat apart from the other new buildings is P-D's new $175,000 high pressure lab. This unit, with four high pressure cells, replaces a two-cell lab in Detroit built in 1955. A P-D spokesman estimates that some 900 chemical tests will be run an­nually in the bunker-like building. Operating conditions can range from

PATTERN FOR RESEARCH. This is the front entrance to the new Parke-Davis research laboratories at Ann Arbor, Mich. The five-building complex, dedicated last week, cost $13.5 million

EYE ON HIGH PRESSURES. Four high pressure cells are used by researchers at Parke-Davis' new labs to study chemical reac­tions under extreme pressures and temperatures.

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I N D U S T R Y & B U S I N E S S

50 pounds to 2.5 tons of pressure per square inch; temperatures from - 9 4 ° F. to +570° F. are attainable. Hydrogen is used for the most part in reaching these conditions, thus posing some tough safety problems. Safety measures include sandwich-like walls with a 6-inch layer of dry sand packed between 3/8-inch steel sheets, bullet proof observation windows, and corrugated steel "pop off" roofs.

Foreign Business Grows. P-D's for­eign business is growing even faster than domestic operations, says Mr. Loynd. Sales in areas outside the U.S., Canada, and Latin America totaled $38.8 million in 1959. This is more than twice sales in these areas in 1950, and greater than total 1950 worldwide sales, excluding the U.S. Overseas sales, up 13.5% in 1959 over 1958, represented nearly a third of total sales.

Seeing a need for "sound planning and direction" of overseas business, P-D called a conference of overseas managers late in 1959. "Differences peculiar to doing business in various countries are becoming less marked," says Mr. Loynd, and P-D is moving toward "consolidation of over-all think­ing" in this area.

To support its fast growing overseas operations, P-D has manufacturing facilities in 18 countries outside the U.S. Research abroad is getting much attention, too. P-D has a research unit in England, and a new research facility is under construction near Sydney, Australia. This unit, to be completed before the end of 1960, will add 5% to the space P-D devotes to research.

TML Bows In as Antiknock Agent California Standard starts adding tetramethyllead to gasoline, plans to drop use of TEL

On top of Ethyl Corp.'s disclosure that it will manufacture tetramethyllead (C&EN, April 18, page 35) comes word that Standard Oil of California is already adding TML to all three grades of its gasoline. Convinced of the advantages of TML over tetra-ethyllead, California Standard is cur­rently using the new additive in com­bination with TEL, hopes to use it exclusively when supply becomes adequate.

Ethyl Corp., which is producing limited quantities of TML at Baton Rouge, La., is Standard's only supplier at the moment. But Du Pont will un­doubtedly get some of the business as soon as it completes a TML unit at its Chambers Works, Deep water Point, Ν J . Socony Mobil and Esso Research and Engineering are also interested in TML, and both evidently have work­able processes.

Standard of California was consider­ing TML as an antiknock agent as far

back as 25 years ago, but rejected it as not being as effective as TEL. Within the past few years, Standard's sub­sidiary, California Research, has been doing a good deal of work with organo-metallies. One of the things un­covered in this work is TML's high antiknock qualities—within the modern automotive concept of high compres­sion engines and highly aromatic, high octane gasolines.

In the early fifties, aromatic content of gasolines was quite low, usually about 10%; more recently, the propor­tion of aromatics has been rising stead­ily. Since TEL loses some of its ef­fectiveness as aromatics increase, Cal Research began experimenting with carboxylic acids as synergists to in­crease the activity of TEL. During this work, company scientists matched the volatility characteristics of the acids with those of lead alkyls and dis­covered that TML is more stable than

Parke-Davis' Outlays for R&D Show

Steady Climb

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960

Millions $ 2.7

3.3 4.3 4.6 4.5 4.7 5.4 6.6 8.4 9.5

12.0

Big Sulfur Plant Goes On Stream at Lacq This 1000 ton-per-day sulfur recovery unit went on stream last month at the gas process­ing plant of Société Nationale des Pétroles d'Aquitaine at Lacq, France. It will be joined by a twin unit within a few months that will bring total processing capacity at Lacq to 750 million cubic feet of raw gas and 4000 long tons of sulfur a day, making the installation the largest of its kind in the world. Design, engineering, and construction supervision were done by Ralph M. Parsons Co., Los Angeles, and S. A. Heurtey Co., Paris

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