For over a hundred years Kent has been the home to some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

Originally the area around the Thames provided access to one of the world’s busiest transport highways and the large London markets. Good quality water and a tradition of milling and manufacturing prompted the establishment of Wellcome (now GlaxoWellcome) at Dartford in 1889. This availability of water led some fifty years later to Pfizer moving to sandwich in 1954 and Abbott to Queenborough in 1962. Both of these companies, who in their early days in Kent were important manufacturers of antibiotics, have expanded considerably with Pfizer establishing a major research centre for new medicines at Sandwich. In 1997, Rhône-Poulenc Rorer moved their headquarters to West Malling. The pharmaceutical industry in Kent now employs around 5000 people and has changed enormously during the last century. The pictures on theses pages illustrate some of the changes.