NEWS
Special report: George Bush's America
The biggest players
Tuesday February 13, 2001 The Guardian

Pfizer.
Sales: $22.6bn 
R&D: $4.4bn
Profits: $6.49bn.
Based in New York.
 Driven by its recent merger with rival Warner-Lambert, Pfizer is likely to edge ahead of Glaxo SmithKline this year to become the world's top selling drugs company. Its best-known product is Viagra, the male impotence drug, created at Sandwich, Kent 

Glaxo SmithKline 
Sales: $22.8bn 
R&D: $3.75bn 
Profits: $7.6bn 
Based in Brentford, Middx 
Glaxo Wellcome recently completed its merger with SmithKline Beecham in a deal intended to create a research powerhouse to develop gene-based drugs. The company is largely run from Philadelphia, although nominally British. 

AstraZeneca 
Sales: $15.8bn 
R&D: $2.62bn 
Profits: $4.11bn 
Based in London 
The Anglo-Swedish group is built around ulcer treatment Losec, the world's best-selling prescription drug. It loses its patent over Losec this year and the company has begun a series of lawsuits aimed at stifling generic copies. It spun off its interest in genetically modified foods last year after protests. 

Aventis 
Sales : $14.8bn 
R&D: $3.12bn 
Profits: $2.8bn 
Based in Strasbourg 
The group, created through a merger of France's Rhone-Poulenc and Germany's Hoechst in 1999, made headlines for allegedly buying thymus glands taken from children during surgery at Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital. Novartis Sales: $10.2bn R&D : $2.8bn Profits: $4.1bn Based in Basel, Switzerland Created four years ago through a merger of Swiss groups Ciba and Sandoz, the company says its ultimate goal "is not only to expand the horizons of science, but also to expand the horizons of life through science". 

Source: annual reports, or analysts' forecasts for Glaxo SmithKline, Aventis Novartis.

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