[1] The Company was established in 1901 (then called Neuralgyline Co.) in Wheeling, West Virginia, by Albert H. Diebold and William E. Weiss, a pharmacist.
[2][citation needed] At the end of World War I in 1918, Sterling purchased the US assets of a German company now known as Bayer AG for US$5.3 million.
In 1919, Sterling sold its dye division for $2.5 million to the Grasselli Chemical Company (based in Linden, New Jersey), which employed many former Bayer personnel.
In 1923, another momentous contract was negotiated: 50% of the profits earned by Sterling's subsidiary Winthrop Chemical, was given to the German Bayer company, which in turn granted licences for new drugs and supported with technical expertise how to produce them.
[7] Mollé Mystery Theatre[8] was a 30-minute anthology radio program that ran from 1943 to 1948 on NBC prior to its moving to the CBS network.
The show, sponsored initially by Sterling Drugs, manufacturers of Mollé Brushless Shaving Cream, began airing on Tuesday evenings during prime time.
[13] A week later, Sanofi announced that it was not interested in the diagnostic imaging business, which it sold to the Norwegian company Hafslund Nycomed AS for US$450 million.