Glaxo Wellcome

British pharmaceutical company formed in 1995 when Glaxo, itself descended from a New Zealand dried milk business that became a medicine maker, bought the Wellcome Foundation, and merged with SmithKline Beecham in 2000 to form GlaxoSmithKline. Made and sold prescription medicines including the antiviral zidovudine and aciclovir from the Wellcome side and the antiulcer ranitidine and respiratory medicines from Glaxo, and ran research laboratories and manufacturing in the United Kingdom and abroad.