APR 23 1964 Research and Development Division Smith Kline & French Laboratories - 1500 Spring Garden St.. Philadelphia. Pa. 19101 April 22, 1964 Dr. Joshua Lederberg Genetics Department Stanford University Medical School Stanford, California Dear Dr. Lederberg: It was a pleasure meeting you on my recent visit to California. I look forward to having another opportunity in the future to diseuss with you topics of mutual interest. In regard to your question with respect to the seasonal variation in the intake of aspirin containing drugs, particularly at the proprietary level, I an enclosing some graphs that indicate the sales for one year of five different preparations, namely: Empirin Bufferin Anacin Exeedrin Bayer Aspirin Of these compounds, “Empirin" is an aspirin, phenacetin, caffeine combination "Bufferin" a buffered aspirin "Anacin" an aspirin, caffeine combination “Excedrin"™ a combination of salicylamide, phenacetin and caffeine It is my impression from looking at these data, and from earlier statistics, that the consumption of aspirin is relatively uniform through the year, with perhaps a slight trough in the summer season when the ineidence of colds is reduced. The pronounced peaks that you see on some of the curves do not re- flect the peaks in intake but reflect promotional offers by the manufacturer which stimulate sales to the pharmacy, You will note that most of the sharp peaks are followed by a relatively low monthly sales figure, so that the true intake of drugs for those two months is very close to an average of the two. If I can be of any further assistance to you, don't hesitate to ask. The graph of sales figures are all drawn to the same scale and the ordinates repre- sent monthly sales figures by the manufacturer, expressed here in arbitrary units. I would appreciate your not publishing any of these data without econ- sulting me, since our ability to get this information depends on our keeping it confidential, Best regards, Sincerely yours, wre Soret MG:hk Maxwell Gordon Ene: Graphs (5)