Clue 1 · The Basics
U.S. healthcare company · mega-cap · listed on the NYSE · headquartered in New York City.
Clue 2 · The Numbers
Annual revenue around $60 billion in a typical year, with an R&D budget that routinely tops $10 billion — because if your pill flops in Phase 3, that's a very expensive oops.
Clue 3 · The History
Founded in Brooklyn in 1849 by a German-American chemist, it got its first big break supplying medicines to Union soldiers during the Civil War.
Clue 4 · The Secret
It is one of the world's largest producers of penicillin and helped mass-produce it during World War II, arguably changing the outcome of the war one dose at a time.
Clue 5 · The Lore
Its cholesterol drug Lipitor became the best-selling prescription drug in history, generating over $130 billion in lifetime sales — more than most countries' GDP.
Clue 6 · The Giveaway
It partnered with BioNTech to deliver the world's first authorized mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in late 2020, shipping billions of doses in a race that the whole planet was watching.