Medicine Ave 2

office was in Germany because Frohlich was a German native, or perhaps it was because, at that time, Germany was the world's second largest pharmaceutical market. His motivations are unclear, but his vision was not. Soon after he opened the first office, additional outposts were established in the UK, France, Japan, and Canada. Shortly after Frohlich's untimely death in 1971, an office was opened in Italy. Was Intercon the industry's first global network? Apparently not. As Larry Lesser, a long-time senior manager at Frohlich and the architect of the future Medicus agency, noted, "Bill saw the need to be where his clients were, both in terms of capabilities as well as geographies. But he kept those two agencies very separate. Intercon was invisible within our US operations. There was no real thought to servicing our US clients overseas. They had different business centers, different addresses, the whole works." The death of L.W. Frohlich ended any prospects for delivering a truly global vision. It is not known if or when he planned on merging the Frohlich agency and Intercon into a single global offering—not one that was just an extension of the working relationships with his US-based pharmaceutical clients, but rather a full-fledged international network. The Frohlich agency soon collapsed, and Intercon was split off to be run separately. Although it did have its own US presence after the Frohlich agency folded, Intercon was unable to resurrect itself as a formidable global presence and remained a loose confederation of offices. From the ashes of the Frohlich agency, Lesser and his colleagues formed Medicus in 1972. As the agency grew, so did its opportunities abroad. "We had lots of international opportunities but no way to deliver on them," said Lesser. In 1980, Medicus acquired Intercon,

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