Uh oh…giant drug companies are buying up supplement makers

Drug giant Bayer just bought Schiff vitamins for more than $1 billion.

A friend of mine sent me the news item with this note: “Hi fox. Here is the hen house. Please watch it closely.”

At first I laughed. Then I thought about it. Now I’m not laughing.

This isn’t Bayer’s first supplement company. Among others, the company also owns One-A-Day.

And as I mentioned last week, Pfizer owns Centrum. But it also owns Alacer Corp. — the largest U.S. producer of vitamin C products.

Merck is in the supplement trade too. They own Seven Seas Fish Oils and Cebion vitamins.

I’m sure if I dug deeper I could find more.

Should we be nervous? Would it be a little too tin-foil-hat to imagine that drug giants are buying up supplement companies to control the industry?

Instead of a fox, suddenly it seems more like a wolf pack in the hen house.

Sources:
“Bayer absolutely open to further acquisitions after 1.2bn Schiff” NutraIngredients-USA, 10/30/12, nutraingredients-usa.com