By 1962, Ortho Pharmaceutical Company, a division of Johnson and Johnson, began to market Ortho-Novum, which rapidly became the best-known and best-selling oral contraceptive in the United States. "The pill" caused a revolution in American society, allowing women a relatively safe, easy, highly effective means of birth control for the first time in history. The active ingredient in Ortho-Novum was norethindrone, which was manufactured by and sold to Ortho by Syntex.
James G. Barrie (1977) observes, "Syntex adopted licensing as its initial international strategy and achieved rapid expansion" (p. 27). Instead of manufacturing and marketing finished drugs, Syntex's early strategies left many of the final steps to other companies. Instead, the business focused on providing important components of other product lines, components for which Syntex could guarantee patents and quality control.
That same year, 1962, Syntex relocated to Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University. Starting in 1972, the company began transforming these headquarters into a massive research, production, and administrative campus.
Syntex continued to diversify its operations and its products. In 1966, the company announced a joint venture with Varian Associates, a business later known as Syva Company. This concern eventually developed and marketed FRAT, the free-radical assay system of drug abuse tests. In 1974, Syntex consolidated all its animal health activities into another subsidiary, Syntex Agribusiness, Inc.
Syntex's research into pain and inflammation led to the discovery of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Syntex patented the first of these, naproxen, under the name Naprosyn. Syntex introduced naproxen in Mexico in 1973 and in the United States in 1976. Anaprox (naproxen sodium) was introduced in 1981, the first year that Syntex was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and, by 1983, Naprosyn and Anaprox had bec...