Wyeth

N.C. Wyeth was not only the greatest illustrator of his day but also the founder of an art dynasty that includes his son Andrew and grandson Jamie. Amazingly, until now there have been no major biographies of this grand illustrator of children's books who was active from the turn of the century until his car was hit by a train in Chadds Ford on Oct. 19, 1945, killing him and his young grandson N. C. Wyeth 2d. Now that biographical void has been filled by David Michaelis' just-published N.C. Wyeth (Alfred A. Knopf, $40)

People crave heroes. The prominent illustrator N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) of Chadds Ford knew that, and he made his mark as an artist portraying heroic figures of all kinds. N.C. Wyeth's lasting fame owes much to his highly successful illustrations for such well-read adventure books as Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island and Kidnapped. His paintings accompanying those works captured the imagination of generations of readers young and old. Wyeth also created 17 patriotic oil paintings that served as illustrations for a book called Poems of American Patriotism (1922)

Magid Abou-Gharbia always wanted to work at a university. But in his early job search, the best offer came from Wyeth pharmaceuticals in Collegeville, so that's where he went. A quarter-century later, after helping develop five new Wyeth drugs and heading a division of 500 scientists, Abou-Gharbia is getting his wish. Now, he hopes to merge two worlds - corporate and academic - as head of Temple University's new Center for Drug Discovery Research. Question: How did the Temple job come up?

It took just a few minutes for the vast majority of Wyeth shareholders to say goodbye to the 83-year-old pharmaceutical giant at the company's last annual meeting yesterday. About 98 percent of Wyeth shareholders voted to approve the company's $68 billion acquisition by New York-based Pfizer. Wyeth is based in Madison, N.J., but employs about 5,000 people at operations in Collegeville and Malvern. The deal will solidify Pfizer's position as the top-selling drugmaker in the world and help it compensate for billions of dollars in revenue it likely will lose when its cholesterol fighter Lipitor loses its patent in 2011.

Developing and bringing to market a new drug is a long, complicated process. But Wyeth thinks it has a fistful of potential winners. Some of the drug compounds are therapies to one day replace its older products to treat depression, osteoporosis and menopausal symptoms. Others are brand-new treatments. Following are new chemical entities that Wyeth and several analysts mention as potential blockbuster products: Tygacil, an injectable antibiotic for drug-resistant bacteria.

Wyeth said yesterday that its pharmaceutical division would stop marketing and selling King Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s heart drug Altace next year, ending nearly two years of disputes over their co-promotion partnership. Wyeth, based in Madison, N.J., with pharmaceutical operations in Collegeville, had agreed in 2000 to work with King, based in Bristol, Tenn., on marketing and promotion of the drug in exchange for a share of its revenue. But in September 2004, Wyeth sued King, seeking about $8.9 million for an alleged breach of their agreement, Wyeth said in its 2005 annual report.

Wyeth late yesterday said the Food and Drug Administration had delayed approval of Prevnar 13, a vaccine that is one of the primary drivers behind the company's anticipated $68 billion merger with Pfizer Inc. Wyeth said the 90-day delay would have no impact on its acquisition by Pfizer and also said it still expects the FDA to approve Prevnar 13. The agency delayed the approval date from Sept. 30 to Dec. 30 after Wyeth submitted new information about how it was measuring and validating the vaccine's physical and chemical properties.

The fallout for Wyeth could have been worse. When the federal government announced yesterday that it had halted another hormone-replacement therapy study - this time for the Madison, N.J., drugmaker's estrogen treatment, Premarin - the reaction from Wall Street and investors was ho-hum. Shares of Wyeth, which employs 4,700 in the Philadelphia area, closed up 35 cents at $39.99. "Overall, we would characterize the news as mixed, as the safety findings in the study were likely less negative than many investors had been fearing," Morgan Stanley analysts said in an update to clients.

Wyeth has become the second pharmaceutical company to warn health-care professionals in recent months that a popular antidepressant drug poses increased risk of suicidal thoughts in children and teenagers. In a letter dated Aug. 22, Wyeth told thousands of physicians that its drug Effexor was not effective in treating depression among children and teens, and that the drug may increase hostility and suicidal thoughts and behavior in children ages 6 to 17. Effexor is one of Wyeth's top-selling drugs, with $2.1 billion in worldwide sales last year.

There is skillduggery brewing at the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford. The smell of rum and gunpowder hangs heavy in the air. Pirates are lurking in the shadows. Captain Billy Bones, who sought refuge among the Wyeth family, has been discovered by Black Dog, followed by Blind Pew, who delivers the "black spot" (the mark of death) to Captain Bones. The captain knows the pirates will soon return for the map - the map that locates the buried gold hidden on Treasure Island. Treasure Island, the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, has come to life again - this time through the oil paintings of N.C. Wyeth.

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in this region's communities. Bruce Prabel and his wife, Marianne, crossed Brandywine Creek from their northern Delaware home in 1979 to what was then Birmingham Township, Delaware County, and came upon The Lake. Eight acres of private lake, in fact, near Karl and Anna Kuerner's Ring Farm, now a National Historic Landmark as the subject of nearly one-third of Andrew Wyeth's lifetime of paintings and, since 1999, part of the Brandywine Conservancy.

Andrew Wyeth died four years ago at 91; in another four years, the centennial of his birth will bring forth a major retrospective exhibition at the Brandywine River Museum, designed not only to commemorate his remarkable career, but also to reevaluate it. The museum has set in motion a five-year sequence of events to set the stage for the centennial celebration in 2017. It wants these events to accomplish two things - introduce Wyeth and the other artists in his family to a new, younger audience, and encourage art historians to reconsider what the Wyeth artists accomplished.

At 10:05 a.m. Tuesday, the Philadelphia Museum of Art hoisted its first and only N.C. Wyeth painting onto the wall at the entrance to the American galleries. Hard to imagine, in a region crawling with Wyethian objects and relatives and art, that this could possibly be the first. But it is - a gift from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, which recently moved from its home of three decades on Vine Street to new glass offices in the Navy Yard. "We don't have any walls," said Ray Millora, the Glaxo project manager for the move.

At 10:05 a.m. Tuesday, the Philadelphia Museum of Art hoisted its first and only N.C. Wyeth painting onto the wall at the entrance to the American galleries. Hard to imagine, in a region crawling with Wyethian objects and relatives and art, that this could possibly be the first. But it is - a gift from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, which has recently moved from its home of three decades on Vine Street to new glass offices in the Navy Yard. "We don't have any walls," said Ray Millora, the Glaxo project manager for the move.

A corporate headhunter called the other day, asking for a list of the "Biggest Philly Business Stories of 2012. " Here's my Top 10:   Monetate's SEPTA ads It's a happy sign in these grim times, and it's not just Monetate . Bentley Systems and Fiberlink added Center City offices, and Alteva moved to a prominent Market Street address, so they can fill new positions with Philly engineers, programmers and sales people....

During the 68 years that Andrew Wyeth worked in his Chadds Ford studio building very few people aside from models got to see the room in which he painted. Signs at the entrance informed casual passers-by that they could not impose: "I am working, so please do not disturb. I do not sign autographs. " And, to show he meant business: "Beware of the dog. " But now anyone with $8 and an hour to spare can see where America's most popular artist (or was that Norman Rockwell?) created many of America's most beloved paintings.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Would I'll Have Another have won the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown had he not gotten injured? Would Union Rags have won the Kentucky Derby had he not been eliminated at the break? The fascinating 2012 Triple Crown season did not play out the way it had been envisioned when the prep races began, and it ended without any answer to the two most pressing questions. What we did get was great stretch runs in Kentucky, Maryland, and New York, one crushing disappointment within hours of a potential coronation, and one setback seconds into the race that may be the start of the Triple Crown but always will be the most important in American racing.

JAMIE WYETH left school in sixth grade, so, in his formative years, he interacted far more with animals than people. "I spent a lot of time alone; I left school to be tutored," the 65-year-old artist said last week. "So most of my companions were animals. It's as simple as that. I knew more animals than I did people. " He was talking about his life on the porch outside the throwback home he shares with his wife Phyllis at the glorious Point Lookout in Chadds Ford, the land spreading out below almost as far as the eye can see, the rolling Brandywine Creek and a railroad track sharing the foreground, a perfect frame for the deer lounging near the faraway tree line.

In the dining room of their 18th-century Chadds Ford farmhouse, a Jamie Wyeth painting depicts a pastoral scene but a slightly chaotic one - his wife, Phyllis, in the midst of their farm animals. "Just the menagerie Phyllis has created around this place - the peacock, the emus, the black cat. A fox carrying on with the chickens," Jamie Wyeth said the other day, standing in front of the painting, titled Pointlookout Farmlife. Amid the swans and low-flying geese in the bottom right corner, kicking at some of those chickens with his hind legs, is a yearling.

Freeman's sale on Thursday of books, manuscripts, and ephemera focuses on the pictorial, with items such as a copy of John James Audubon's The Birds of America and an Andrew Wyeth portfolio of color reproductions expected to bring top prices. But the 595 lots in the sale, which begins at 10 a.m. at the gallery at 1808 Chestnut St., also include works that shed light on the era that produced them. A prime example is an album of pencil drawings and watercolors done mainly by Joseph Charlemagne for Queen Olga of Württemberg in the days when many European royal families were interrelated.