Origins
In 1867, the three Mallinckrodt brothers, Gustav, Otto and Edward Sr., founded G. Mallinckrodt & Co. in St. Louis.[6] The Mallinckrodt family had immigrated from Germany. Otto and Edward both temporarily returned to Germany, then the leader in chemical research and education, for advanced training.[7] Brothers Gustav and Otto died in the 1870s, leaving Edward (1845–1928) in sole charge of the family business. Mallinckrodt Chemical Works was incorporated 15 years later, in 1882.
By 1898, the company had established itself as a pharmaceuticals supplier and in 1913 became the first to introduce barium sulfate as a contrast medium for X-rays.[6] In part due to early success in production of radiology agents, and at the behest of surgeon Evarts Graham, Edward Mallinckrodt Sr. assigned one of the company's top chemists to collaborate in developing the first radiographic agent for gallbladder and bile duct imaging.[8]
Uranium processing (1942–1957)
In April 1942 Edward Mallinckrodt was approached by a contingent from the Metallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project, particularly by Arthur Holly Compton.[9] Compton urgently needed a source of refined uranium. The chemical company already worked with ether, which could theoretically be used in a purifying process but which posed its own handling risks. With extreme haste and with tight security restrictions, Mallinckrodt developed a novel technique from theoretical concept, to experiment, to full production. The company submitted test materials by mid-May, supplied the material for the first self-sustaining reaction in December, and had satisfied the project's entire order of the first sixty tons before the contract with the government was even signed.
From 1942 to 1957, Mallinckrodt processed uranium ore for the Manhattan Project feed materials program at a factory north of downtown St. Louis. Nuclear waste from the factory and other locations was buried in steel drums at a 21.7-acre site near Lambert Field.[10] Radioactive waste from the site seeped into Coldwater Creek.[11] The area was designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency
Corporate changes
The company issued public shares in 1954.[14] Viewed as an attractive takeover target in the era of leveraged buyouts, Mallinckrodt was bought by Avon Products in 1982, and largely kept intact as a business entity. Just four years later it was sold to International Minerals and Chemical Corporation. After re-brandings, spin-offs and other changes of corporate identity[15] Mallinckrodt was again sold in 2000 to Tyco International.
Cocaine processing from Coca-Cola's coca plants
Coca-Cola includes a coca leaf extract as an ingredient prepared by Stepan Company in Maywood, New Jersey.[16] The plant is the only commercial entity in the United States authorized by the Drug Enforcement Administration to import coca leaves, which come primarily from Peru via the National Coca Company. The plant extracts the cocaine from the coca plants and sells it to Mallinckrodt for medicinal purposes.[17]
, Mallinckrodt is the only company in the U.S. that is allowed to receive cocaine, which is sold as a prescription drug for use in hospitals as a local anesthetic by eye and ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctors.[18]
Ties to Washington University in St. Louis
Throughout its history, Washington University in St. Louis has received a large number of donations from the Mallinckrodt family and corporation, including a posthumous endowment by Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. on behalf of his father to the Washington University School of Medicine Radiology Department resulting in the creation of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.[19] Both Edward Mallinckrodt Sr. and Jr. served as members of the Washington University Board of Trustees. Washington University in St. Louis' student union building and performing arts building was renamed the Mallinckrodt Center in 1976.[20]
In 2018, Mallinckrodt partnered with the Washington University School of Medicine with funding of up to $10 million over five years to support research projects that show promise in developing new drugs for treating rare diseases.[21]
The elder Edward also made significant donations to his alma mater, Harvard University, and to the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.[22]
Tax inversion to Ireland (2013)
In 2013, Mallinckrodt executed a corporate tax inversion to Ireland to avoid U.S. corporate taxes, by acquiring Irish-based Cadence Pharma for $1.3 billion.[23] This was despite the fact that almost all of Mallinckrodt's revenues come from the U.S. market (see table below). In 2015, Mallinckrodt was one of several U.S. tax inversions that The Wall Street Journal reported to be using a lower tax-platform to acquire further U.S. pharmaceutical firms, such as the $5.6 billion acquisition of Questor in 2014.[24] In December 2015, The Irish Times reported the CEO as saying that "It'd have to be a pretty dramatic change to the US tax code" for Mallinckrodt to return to the U.S., and that "We're already foreign domiciled, so we may as well take full advantage of it".[25]
In February 2018, Mallinckrodt told the Wall Street Journal that it would get a $450 to $500 million tax credits from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), but that some of these benefits would be offset by the anti-inversion provisions of the TCJA.[26]
Acthar controversy
In December 2012, The New York Times, in an article on Mallinckrodt's main drug H.P. Acthar Gel, reported: "How the price of this drug rose so far, so fast is a story for these troubled times in American health care—a tale of aggressive marketing, questionable medicine and, not least, out-of-control costs".[29] In January 2017, the Financial Times reported that Mallinckrodt had made a settlement of $100 million with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in relation to antitrust probes on Acthar and quoted the FTC as saying: "Questcor [Mallinckrodt's subsidiary] took advantage of its monopoly to repeatedly raise the price of Acthar, from $40 per vial in 2001 to more than $34,000 per vial today – an 85,000 percent increase".[30] The city of Rockford, Illinois, is now suing Mallinckrodt and pharmacy benefit management company Express Scripts for their failure to reduce Acthar's price.[31]
In May 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. investor Jim Chanos accused Mallinckrodt in relation to Acthar of being a "one-product company",
Role in opioid crisis
A US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) database tracking every opioid pill sold in the United States from 2006 through 2012 was made public in 2019. The database "attributed the vast majority of the 76 billion opioid pills produced and shipped from 2006 through 2012 to three companies", one of which was SpecGx, a subsidiary of Mallinckrodt. In those years SpecGx supplied 28.9 billion oxycodone pills, more than 80 for each person in the United States, and over 2 billion pills just in Florida.[5]
In 2011 the DEA complained to Mallinckrodt about the problem of excessive prescription opioid shipments to pharmacies. DEA officials showed the company the hundreds of millions of doses of oxycodone it was shipping to distributors and the correspondingly high number of arrests being made for oxycodone possession and sale in those areas. Negotiations between the DEA and Mallinckrodt ensued, and in 2017 Mallinckrodt paid a $35 million fine to settle DEA complaints it did not adequately address suspicious opioid orders, acknowledging "certain aspects of Mallinckrodt's system to monitor and detect suspicious orders did not meet" DEA standards.[5]
Mallinckrodt announced in April 2019 a plan to change its name to Sonorant Therapeutics, and spin off "Mallinckrodt Inc." as a separate company for its generics business. Legal liabilities that result from opioid litigation would "remain with Mallinckrodt Inc. or its subsidiaries following the separation."[5]
Merger
In March 2025, Mallinckrodt and Endo announced plans to merge in a deal valued at $6.7 billion.[58]
