King Pharmaceuticals

About King Pharmaceuticals

King Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: KG), the world's 39th largest pharmaceutical company, is based in Bristol, Tennessee. King produces a wide range of pharmaceuticals, including Altace for heart attack prevention, Levoxyl for hypothyroidism, Sonata, a sleeping aid, and Skelaxin, a muscle relaxant, as well as Glumetza manufactured by Depomed, for diabetes. King Pharmaceuticals currently operates manufacturing facilities in Bristol, Tennessee, Rochester, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Petersburg, Florida, and Middleton, Wisconsin, and they employ approximately 2700 people including a sales force of over 1000 individuals.

King's wholly owned subsidiaries are Monarch Pharmaceuticals, Inc., King Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Inc., Meridian Medical Technologies Inc., Parkdale Pharmaceuticals, Inc., King Pharmaceuticals of Nevada, Inc., and Monarch Pharmaceuticals Ireland Limited.

King Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1993 by John M. Gregory. In January 1994, King acquired a former Beecham plant in Bristol, TN. The 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2) facility was purchased for $1.18 million from RSR Pharmaceutical, who had been using it after Beecham merged with SmithKline. King initially began only manufacturing drugs for other pharmaceutical companies, but soon established its long standing strategy of acquiring branded prescription drugs, which have a much higher gross margin than contract manufactured drugs. From 1994 to 1998, King obtained about twenty smaller branded drugs and then went public in June 1998.