Icos was the largest biotechnology company in the U.S. state of Washington before it was sold to Eli Lilly and Company in 2007. Co-founded in 1989 by George Rathmann, a pioneer in the industry and co-founder of Amgen, Icos focused on the development of drugs to treat inflammatory disorders. During its 17-year history, the company conducted clinical trials of 12 drugs, three of which reached the last phase of clinical trials. Icos is famous for tadalafil (Cialis), a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction. This drug was discovered by GlaxoSmithKline, developed by Icos, and manufactured and marketed in partnership with Eli Lilly. Boosted by a unique advertising campaign led by the Grey Worldwide Agency, sales from Cialis allowed Icos to become profitable in 2006. Cialis was the only drug developed by the company to be approved. LeukArrest, a drug to treat shock, and Pafase, developed for sepsis, were both tested in phase III clinical trials, but testing was discontinued after unpromising results during the trials. Eli Lilly acquired Icos in January 2007, and most of Icos's workers were laid off soon after. CMC Biopharmaceuticals, a Danish contract manufacturer, bought the remnants of Icos and retained the remaining employees.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icos

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1781:

German-born British astronomer and composer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus while in the garden of his house in Bath, Somerset, England, thinking it was a comet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus

1845:

German composer Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, one of the most popular and most frequently performed violin concertos of all time, was first played in Leipzig, with violinist Ferdinand David as soloist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_%28Mendelssohn%29

1943:

The Holocaust: Nazi troops under SS Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth began liquidating the Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, Poland, sending about 8,000 Jews deemed able to work to the Plaszow labor camp. Those deemed unfit for work were either killed or sent to die at the Auschwitz concentration camp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w_Ghetto

1954:

Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap unleashed a massive artillery barrage on the French military to begin the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the climactic battle in the First Indochina War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu

1996:

In the deadliest attack on children in the history of the United Kingdom, a spree killer killed sixteen children and a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, before committing suicide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dissociate (v): 1. To make unrelated; to sever a connection; to separate. 2. To part; to stop associating. 3. (chemistry) To separate compounds into simpler component parts, usually by applying heat or through electrolysis http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dissociate

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The joy of life discovered by the Greeks is not a profane type of enjoyment: it reveals the bliss of existing, of sharing — even fugitively — in the spontaneity of life and the majesty of the world. Like so many others before and after them, the Greeks learned that the surest way to escape from time is to exploit the wealth, at first sight impossible to suspect, of the lived instant. --Mircea Eliade http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade