By 1890, the sales success of his
patent medicine tonic, "Dr. Miles Restorative Nervine," in treating "nervous" ailments (including "
nervousness or
nervous exhaustion,
sleeplessness,
hysteria,
headache,
neuralgia,
backache,
pain,
epilepsy,
spasms,
fits, and
St. Vitus' dance") led him to develop a
mail order medicine business. Miles also published
Medical News, from 1884—a thinly disguised marketing vehicle for
Nervine, now referenced as
advertorials. Nervine remained on the market as a "
calmative" until the late 1960s; Miles' bromide sedative syrup is considered "a precursor to modern tranquilizers." The company was at the heart of the 1911
antitrust Supreme Court case
Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co. After John D. Park & Sons Co. profited off of Dr. Miles' advertising while selling his products at rock bottom prices, the Supreme Court ruled that
resale price maintenance, a form of
vertical restraint, is
illegal per se. In 1932, the company became Dr. Miles Laboratories; then, in 1935, the name was again changed, to Miles Laboratories. In 1947, Miles Laboratories purchased Chemical Specialties Inc. During
World War II the company produced various goods for the US war effort, including packaged coffee products for military rations. The company already made One-A-Day Vitamins and later introduced Chocks, the first chewable
multivitamins for children.
Flintstones Vitamins came later. In 1970, to complement its existing vitamin manufacturing division, Miles laboratories merged with
Adventist-owned Worthington Foods of Ohio, opening a new Worthington Foods factory in 1972 to quadruple production capacity for a line of vegetarian foods based on the
meat analogue developed over the previous two decades by Worthington, to be marketed under the brand name
Morning Star Farm Foods, Morning Star was sold with Worthington Foods to
Kellogg's in 1999. In 1979,
Bayer AG—after its U.S. and Canadian
aspirin business was seized as enemy property during
World War I and subsequently sold as enemy assets—purchased Miles Laboratories and its subsidiary Miles Canada to reestablish a presence in North America. In the process, Bayer also acquired products such as
Alka-Seltzer, Flintstones Vitamins, One-a-Day,
Bactine,
S.O.S Soap Pads, and Worthington Foods. Bayer continued to operate Miles Laboratories and developed many drugs based upon biological extracts, such as
Kogenate,
Gamimune-N and other
immunoglobulins, and
Trasylol, as well as diagnostic products such as
blood glucose test strips and
glucose meters. Miles also owned
Cutter Laboratories, manufacturer of such diverse products as
insect repellent and
synthetic human
Factor VIII clotting factor for
hemophiliacs. In 1992, Bayer AG moved the United States headquarters of Miles to
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, from Elkhart, Indiana. In 1994, the Bayer moved the Miles headquarters to New Jersey. In 2003, the 1-million-sq-ft Miles Laboratories building was sold to the non-profit charity
Feed The Children for $1 as a part of Bayer Diagnostics "Develop Northern Indiana" marketing campaign. The low sale price of $1 enticed many companies to purchase the plant, but Bayer Diagnostics liked the long-term financial plan that Feed The Children had for the campus. Between 2011 and 2012, the former Miles campus, a 26-acre site located in Elkhart, was vacated and the remaining buildings were demolished. ==References==