Chiron Corporation

Chiron Corporation [1] was an American multinational biotechnology firm founded in 1981, based in Emeryville, California, that was acquired by Novartis on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. Chiron's business and research was in three main areas: biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, and blood testing. Chiron's vaccines and blood testing units were combined to form Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, while Chiron BioPharmaceuticals was integrated into Novartis Pharmaceuticals. In 2014, Novartis completed the sale of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit to Grifols and announced agreements for the sale of its vaccines unit to GlaxoSmithKline.[2]

Early history

Chiron was founded in 1981 by chairman, William J. Rutter, president and chief executive, Professor Edward Penhoet, and vice president for research, Pablo DT Valenzuela. All were academics from the

Lawsuits

When in 1991 Cetus was acquired it was subject to a lawsuit by the Eastman Kodak Company over the rights to the polymerase chain reaction product, which was settled in 1993.[23] In 1998, Chiron filed patent infringement suits in Europe, Japan and the US against Roche over its hepatitis C (HCV) products. Chiron was the first to clone HCV in 1989 after six years of research[8] and had since filed over 100 HCV related patents in over 20 countries.[31] A settlement was reached where Roche Holding A.G. agreed to buy the global semi-exclusive nucleic acid test (NAT) patents for HCV and HIV from Chiron.[25] Bayer (the company that bought Chiron Diagnostics) sued Chiron Corporation in 2002 citing that it hid patent and equipment problems from them during purchase negotiations.[32] The case filed in Delaware alleged breach of warranty, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, violation of the duty of good faith and fair dealing and breach of contract claims in connection with the acquisition.[33]

In 2004, Chiron attracted adverse media coverage after the UK government suspended its license for manufacturing Fluvirin, an influenza vaccine, at its plant in Liverpool, England due to contamination concerns.[34] This action left the United States government short of the vaccine. In August, it was announced that 4 million doses of the vaccine were potentially contaminated with Serratia marcescens.[34] It later emerged that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may have been aware of the problem nine months earlier, but a miscommunication between the company and the FDA left the problem unsolved until the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency), the British equivalent of the FDA stepped in and suspended Chiron's license.[35] The company undertook a remediation program and succeeded in restoring the manufacturing license from MHRA in 2005. However, the incident resulted in a class action lawsuit for nearly $280m being brought against Chiron and its executives for allegedly, in 2003, overstating its ability to manufacture and ship the vaccine Fluvirin, thus allowing Novartis to buy Chiron shares below market value when the plant temporarily closed down. The amount settled in 2008 was for $30m.[36]

type	Subsidiary
foundation	1981
fate	Acquired by Novartis in 2006. In 2014, its assets related to blood testing and vaccines subsequently sold to Grifols and GlaxoSmithKline, respectively.
defunct	April 20, 2006
location	Emeryville, California, USA
num employees	5,400 (2005)
products	Biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, blood testing
industry	Biotechnology
revenue	▲ $1.921 billion (2005)
homepage	www.chiron.com

Early history

Expansion

Products and other acquisitions

Lawsuits

Bombings

The end of Chiron

Products

See also

External links

References