There are twelve major pharmaceutical firms that dominate this industry worldwide. Their combined market value is over $1 trillion with total  annual sales  of over $500 billion. The firms have developed and marketed most of the global blockbuster drugs. Most of the significant actions take by the FDA and other drug and medical device regulatory bodies involve the medications, devices, and vaccines developed by these firms.

These twelve companies are  also involved in most of the large product liability actions and class action suits regarding prescription drugs. The largest pharmaceutical firms spend tens of million of dollars in legal fees and lobbying expenses every year to protect the intellectual property they have created and  to defend themselves when side effects from their products injure customers.

The twelve CEOs on this list are the global drugs lords. They operate in a heavily regulated industry and have close and often fractious relationships with the governments whose agencies work with them. 24/7 Wall St. has looked at each company, its blockbuster drugs, and  its most valuable board members. These members are often not the most well-known people on the boards. They are, however, individuals from the medical community, former regulators, academicians involved in the medical research world, and fixers who serve on large numbers of boards and whose contacts in the world of government and industry are invaluable.

The drug industry is under seige by generics and rising costs of R&D. Many of the largest firms in the sector, the companies on this list,  have been though substantial restructurings and have fired tens of thousand of people, cutting R&D budgets in the process. This generation of CEOs and board members will shape the rapidly changing industry more than any other group in decades.

	Drug Lord	Drug Lord Kingdom	Board VIPs
	William C. Welding – Johnson & Johnson	Market cap of $176 billion. Board made up of CEOs, retired CEOs, and academicians. Big Drugs: Topamax, Risperdal, Procrit, Levaquin, large market share in joints, stents, diabetic diagnostics and medication, and drug screening products.	David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. – Assistant Secretary of Health and then Surgeon General under both a Democrat (Clinton) and a conservative (George W.) Has massive political clout.
	Jeffrey B. Kindler – Pfizer	Market cap of $145 billion. Bought Wyeth, which should take sales to $70 billion. Significant board links to medical community, public policy, and medical insurance. Big Drugs: Lipitor, Norvasc, Zyrtec, Viagra, Premarin and Detrol.	Chuck Hagel – A two-term moderate and respected Senator from Nebraska who retired last year. Pfizer saw a great opportunity and picked Hagel up before he made it out the Capitol building door.Constance Horner – Worked two terms under Reagan as economic and personal advisor, then as assistant to  George H. W. Bush. Capped off her political career as Deputy Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services.
	Severin Schwan – Roche	Took over biotech giant Genentech. Board heavy with academicians and bankers.  Big Drugs: Avastin, Bactrim, Boniva, CellCept, Herceptin, Nuepogen, Accutane, Tamiflu, Rocephin.	DeAnne Julius CBE, Ph.D. (Econ) – Unable to match J&J and Pfizer by netting some weighty political figure, Roche is one of the few companies that had to settle for someone who uses expertise in global politics, rather than sheer political muscle, to get what it wants. Julius spent decades analyzing the U.S. government, and also worked in DC as senior economic advisor of the World Bank.
	Joseph Jimenez, M.D. – Novartis	Market cap of $125 billion. Board heavy with Ph.Ds, M.D.s, and biopharma experts. Big Drugs: Diovan, Starlix, Femara, Zometa, Ritalin, Lucentis Lamicil.	William Brody, M.D., Ph.D. – The former president of Johns Hopkins, Brody wears many hats and has a hand in many pots. Serves on too many corporate boards to list, and has been on the advisory board of many U.S. Govt. organizations. Is also a friend of Michael Bloomberg.
	Christopher Viebacher – Sanofi-Aventis	Market cap of $94 billion. Board built with members of other large companies board members and academicians. Big Drugs: Actonel, Allegra, Lantus, Lovenox, Nasacort, Plavix.	Lord Arthur Douro – If you can’t get a former American politician, an active European one will do in a pinch. Douro is a member of the House of Lords.
	Andrew Witty – GlaxoSmithKline	Market cap of $94 billion. Board made up of med school professors and corporate managers. Big Drugs: Boniva, Avandia, Lamictal,Mepron, Tagamet.	Andrew Witty – Normally a CEO is too above-the-radar to be pulling political strings for a drug company, but before and during his tenure as CEO, Witty served as advisor to governments around the world (e.g. South Africa, Singapore, China and the UK).  He is also President of the EFPIA, the European equivalent of PhRMA.Sir Roy Anderson – A highly respected doctor with a great deal of influence in the European medical community. Is highly regarded in the U.S. as well. Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defense in the United Kingdom, A foreign associate member of the Institute of Medicine at the US National Academy of Sciences. Was also knighted by the queen, for what it’s worth.
	David Brennan – AstraZeneca	Market cap of $63 Billion. Board of non-executive chairmen, financiers, and medical academicians. Big Drugs: Crestor, Diprivan, Inderal, Nexium.	Jane Henney – Served under Clinton as the first female Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Henney just might know something about how to get drugs approved with great speed and minimal questions. It’s hard to believe this is legal.
	Miles White – Abbott Labs	Market cap of $84 billion. Board built almost exclusively with execs from other big companies, with a couple of medical professionals thrown in. Big Drugs: Fosamax, Gardasil, Mevacor, Pepcid.	David Owen – A British Minister of Health from 1974-76 and a member of  House of Commons from 1966 to May 1992. Does anyone honestly think this guy is on the board because he knows how to run a business?William M. Daley – A prominent lawyer with all kinds of political influence, was U.S. Secretary of Commerce under Clinton, coordinated the successful campaign to pass NAFTA.
	Richard Clark – Merck	Market cap of $77 Billion. Board consists of lots of medical professionals and former walls street execs. Big Drugs: Depakote ER, Lexapor, Vicodin.	William N. Kelley M.D – One of the medical community’s top dogs: Kelley is Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine and Chair of the Residency Review Committee for Internal Medicine. Kelley’s presence on Merck’s board gives the company unprecedented access to the physicians’ community.Thomas Glocer – Glocer’s position on Merck’s board may be the epitome of conflict of interest. Since he also happens to be CEO of Thomson Reuters, one of the largest and most respected news organizations in the world. With that kind of influence with the press, does Merck even need to hire a PR exec?
	James Cornelius – Bristol-Myers Squibb	Market Cap of $48 billion. Board composed of academicians, former CEOs, active CEOs, economists and lawyers. Big Drugs: Coumadin, Plavix, Abilify, Erbitux.	Louis J. Freeh – A prominent lawyer with a lengthy career beginning as District Court judge and ending as Director of the FBI. With Freeh on its side, Bristol-Meyers has a strong advisor if and when it faces any liability or class-action suits.Togo D. West, Jr. – Secretary of the Army and then Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs under Clinton. Between Freeh and West, the company seems to be preparing for armed conflict.
	John Lechleiter, Ph.D. – Eli Lilly & Co.	Market Cap of $39 billion. Board is equal parts academicians (all fields) and a conglomerate of other boards. Big Drugs: Aranesp, Epogen, Neupogen, Prozac, Zyprexa,Darvocet, Forteo, Evista,and ,Humulin.	Franklyn G. Prendergast M.D., Ph.D. – One of the ranking members of the company’s policy committee, Prendergast is another one of those doctors that seems to be a member of every single board and society a prestigious physician can join.
	Kevin Sharer – Amgen	Technically a biotech company. Market cap of $55 billion. Board of former CEOs and medical academicians. Big Drugs: Aranesp, Epogen, Neupogen, Kineret, Neulasta.	David Baltimore – Dr. Baltimore has been a major figure in Washington as the Head of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee. Received the Nobel Prize in medicine.J. Paul Reason – Not to be outdone by Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Amgen has a high-ranking military figure of their own in Reason. A four-star admiral and commander-in-chief of the US Atlantic Fleet.

-Douglas A. McIntyre and Michael B. Sauter

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