King Pharmaceuticals, is a pharmaceutical company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer based in Bristol, Tennessee. Before being acquired by Pfizer, it was the world's 39th largest pharmaceutical company. On October 12, 2010, King was acquired by Pfizer for $14.25 per share. King produced a wide range of pharmaceuticals, including Altace for heart attack prevention, Levoxyl for hypothyroidism, Sonata, a sleeping aid, and Skelaxin, a muscle relaxant. King Pharmaceuticals operated manufacturing facilities in Bristol, Tennessee; Rochester, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Middleton, Wisconsin. They employed approximately 2,700 people including a sales force of over 1,000 individuals. King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was incorporated in the State of Tennessee in 1993. According to the King Pharmaceutcals, Inc. Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the wholly owned subsidiaries of King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. are Monarch Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; King Pharmaceuticals Research and Development, Inc.; Meridian Medical Technologies, Inc.; Parkedale Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; King Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc.; and Monarch Pharmaceuticals Ireland Limited. Company history King Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1993 John M. Gregory, Randal J. Kirk, Joseph "Joe" R. Gregory, Jefferson "Jeff" J. Gregory, and James E. Gregory. In January 1994, King acquired a former King College campus plant in Bristol, Tennessee. The facility was purchased for $1.18 million from RSR Pharmaceutical, who had been using it after Beecham merged with SmithKline. King initially manufactured drugs for other pharmaceutical companies, but soon established a strategy of acquiring branded prescription drugs, which have a much higher gross margin than contract manufactured drugs. In February 1998, King acquired 15 branded pharmaceuticals, a sterile products manufacturing facility located in Rochester, Michigan that it called the "Parkedale Facility") and some contract manufacturing contracts. By December 1998 King had placed its sterile products business into a subsidiary it named Parkedale Pharmaceuticals. King Pharmaceuticals obtained about twenty smaller branded drugs from the start up of the company until it went public in June 1998. The King Pharmaceuticals subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals acquired one of its most profitable branded drugs, Altace, later the same year on December 18, 1998 from Hoechst Marion Roussel. U.S. marketing and distribution rights to Altace Hoechst merged with Marion Merrill Dow of Kansas City, Missouri in 1995, forming the Hoechst U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR). Altace was bringing in under $90 million in U.S. revenues for HMR and Hoechst had stopped promoting Altace within the