This story might begin in any number of places, but a likely one is in the basement of a midtown Kansas City home, circa 1950, where Ewing Marion Kauffman launched the company that would come to bear his middle name.
Why the middle name? Kauffman figured that customers would quickly see through his one-man-band operation if he claimed to be representing “Kauffman Labs,” let alone “Ewing Labs.”
Forty years later, when Kauffman sold his company to Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, he had 3,400 more “associates” working with him than he did when he began, not to mention about $1 billion a year more in sales.
The one drug, above all, that made Kauffman his fortune was Cardizem, a hypertension drug that accounted for $600 million in annual sales in 1989 when Marion evolved into Marion Merrell Dow. It was just one of many drugs that would put Kansas City on the pharmaceutical map.
As shall be seen, this is a rapidly changing map. Pharmaceutical companies merge and swap partners more frequently than Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1995 Hoechst AG of Germany bought Marion Merrell Dow, and the once again merged entity, Hoechst Marion Roussel, kept its North American headquarters in Kansas City.
Hoechst, which no one could pronounce anyhow, fused with the pharmaceutical and lab assay testing company, Aventis, in 1999, which subsequently became a part of the Paris-based pharmaceutical company, Sanofi-Aventis. Happily for Kansas City, Sanofi-Aventis kept its production plant here in the region, appropriately enough on Marion Park Drive.
Sanofi-Aventis markets some of the world’s most popular drugs. Plavix, which is used in the treatment of coronary artery, has been the number two top-selling drug in the world over the past several years [Pfizer’s Lipitor is first]. Other best-sellers include the anti-insomnia drug, Ambien, the antihista-mine, Allegra, the diabetes drug, Lantus, and the osteoporosis fighter, Actonel.
Among the other major pharmaceutical players in Kansas Cityis TevaNeuroscience, LLC, a subsidiary of the Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Teva Neuroscience markets Copaxone, which treats relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and Azilect, a Parkinson’s drug. Teva Neuroscience and its parent company have committed some $200 million to neurological research over the next three years.
The revolutionary new antiseptic, ChloraPrep, was created by the Leawood-based Medi-Flex, which was absorbed into the firm Enturia, which was then absorbed by the Ohio-based giant, Cardinal Health. Although manufactured in El Paso, the management and marketing arm for ChloraPrep remains in Leawood.
Nostrum Laboratories,LLC, in KansasCity, a subsidiary of the New Jersey-based Nostrum Pharmaceuticals, pro-duces Sucrulfate Tablets, a generic drug, which coats ulcers in the digestive system and protects them from stomach acid. Of note, Sucrulfate “may also prevent ulcers in animals,” the company says.
Animals, by the way, are well taken care of by any number of firms scattered throughout the Kansas City-Topeka-St. Joseph region. Indeed, it’s pretty easy to make the case that from a dog’s perspective ours might just be the drug capital of the world. From a human perspective, it’s not too bad either. 
