John M. Gregory is a former CEO of King Pharmaceuticals and resides in Bristol, Tennessee. In addition to having started up King Pharma back in 1994, Gregory has started up several other notable business ventures including SJ Strategic Investments (a privately held investment firm) and Leitner Pharmaceuticals. Most recently, Gregory has also made major investment outside of the pharmaceutical industry, such as his investment within the privately held United Coal Company located in southwest Virginia.

[edit] King Pharma acquiring U.S. rights to Altace

During 1994, the U.S. National Right to Life Committee announced an anti-RU-486 boycott, targeting all Hoechst pharmaceutical products including Altace. By September 17, the pro-life organization, Pharmacists For Life International, joined the NRLC anti-RU-486 boycott "...against the American subsidiary of Hoechst, AG Hoechst-Roussel, Hoechst-Celanese, its generic subsidiary Coply Pharmaceuticals and the agricultural Hoechst subsidiary"^[1] while asking U.S. consumers to "...focus on key Hoechst drugs which have the most economic impact rather than taking an across-the-board shotgun approach"^[1] and specifically targeting Altace as a boycott list item.^[1][2]

Hoechst merged with Marion Merrill Dow of Kansas City, Missouri in 1995, forming the Hoechst U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR). Altace was bringing in under $90 million in U.S. revenues for HMR and Hoechst had stopped promoting Altace within the United States.^[3], and King Pharmaceuticals President Jefferson "Jeff" Gregory also began negotiations in 1995 with Hoechst to acquire U.S. distribution rights to Altace.^[3]

The King Pharmaceuticals wholly owned subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (another brother - Joseph Gregory - was then the president of Monarch Pharmaceuticals) acquired ownership of the U.S. distribution and marketing rights to Altace and other Hoescht products from Hoescht AG subsidiary Hoechst Marion Roussel of Kansas City, Missouri on December 18, 1998, and ^[4] following a January 1999 merger with Rhône-Poulenc, Hoechst assummed the new corporate identity of Aventis).

In 2001, Forbes magazine ranked Gregory among the 400 richest Americans. The bulk of Gregory's personal fortune was due in large part due to the ability of King Pharma to reintroduce the prescription drug Altace back into the U.S. market under the King Pharma subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals brand following the 1998 U.S. marketing and distribution agreement between King and Hoechst/HMR.

[edit] Political connection to Altace, pharmaceutical industry

Gregory, along with his family members and subordinate company executives, has been making considerable financial impact through his political campaign donations to Republican candidates in Tennessee, Virginia and Maryland state elections and within both U.S. congressional and presidential elections on the federal level. He financed and founded the Tennessee Conservative PAC^[5] and has made large donations to other political action committees supporting Republican candidates. Gregory is also a prominent campaign contributor to pro-life political action committees in Tennessee, including Tennessee Right To Life PAC,^[6] the State of Franklin PAC,^[7], and the Tennessee Conservative PAC.^[8]

Tennessee State Senator Ron Ramsey organized an August 1999 lobbying airlift from Northeast Tennessee aboard King Pharmaceuticals-owned corporate aircraft and flew to a Nashville meeting with TennCare Director Brian Lapps that was also attended by State Representatives Jason Mumpower, Steve Godsey, and David Davis at the request of King Pharmaceuticals lobbyist^[9] and former Tennessee State Senator James "Jim" L. Holcomb. The meeting was successful in placing the recently acquired Monarch Pharmaceuticals (a King Pharmaceuticals subsidiary) branded drug Altace onto the TennCare Preferred Drug List within only 33 days.^[9] Lapps resigned as TennCare Director on September 27, 1999.^[10]

Aventis was formed in January 1999 when Rhône-Poulenc merged with Hoechst Marion Roussel (a U.S. subsidiary which itself was formed from the merger of Hoechst AG with Roussel Uclaf in 1994 and Marion Merrell Dow in 1996). The merged company was based in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg, France. Roussel Uclaf is a French company, headquartered in Romainville. It is involved in healthcare, agro-chemical, animal health and related fields. In 1994 many of its non-core activities were transferred to Hoechst Schering AgrEvo GmBH in Germany.

Although it has more than 10,000 patents worldwide, Roussel Uclaf is best known for the abortifacient mifepristone, otherwise known by its laboratory name of RU 486. The U.S. patent rights for this drug were donated to the Population Council a U.S. not-for-profit corporation, in 1994. A major stockholder of Roussel Uclaf is Hoechst AG which was one of the companies that merged in 1925 to form IG Farben, the company that would supply the Nazis with synthetic gasoline and rubber and also held the patent for Zyklon B which was used in gassing of prisoners at Auschwitz.

Aventis went on in 2004 to merge with Sanofi-Synthélabo, forming Sanofi-Aventis as the third largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Funding Universe. King Pharmaceuticals, Inc.