Word: corfam
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...chemicals, even though the company is still the biggest in the field (1970 sales: $3.6 billion). Du Pont leaders have long dreamed of producing "another nylon," but the company has introduced few notably profitable products in the past decade. Several that did appear turned out to be expensive failures. Corfam, the synthetic leather, is being phased out after an investment of $100 million. Other disappointments: an antiflu pill called Symmetrel and a venture into the production of photo film. Last week the board announced a decline in earnings from $93 million in the first quarter of 1970 to $74 million...
...water to produce nylon, the wizards of Wilmington, Del., have been searching and researching for another equally profitable synthetic smash. By 1964, Du Pont chemists thought that they had found it: a porous polymer that looked and felt like leather, yet wore like armor plate. The company thereupon introduced Corfam, a weatherproof shoe material, predicting that by 1984 every fourth foot in the country would be encased in it. Du Pont stock rose to an all-time...
Last week Du Pont announced that, after seven years of bad luck, it is walking out on Corfam. Though some 100 million pairs of synthetic shoes are still afoot, the firm has lost as much as $100 million trying to make and market its material. A flood of inferior but cheaper leather substitutes crowded Corfam out of the low-priced shoe market, company men said, and consumers kept favoring leather for expensive footwear. Many people complained that Corfam shoes were hard to break in and hot to wear. The company was never able to reduce production costs enough to make...
...decades, but its first really promising product, an oral flu-preventive pill called Symmetrel, has been a commercial flop since it was introduced in 1967. Reason: Du Pont lacked both expertise and a sales force for drug marketing, and one result was that doctors generally did not prescribe it. Corfam, the first synthetic leather to "breathe," cost $60 million to get into production in 1964, but quick and stiff competition has made it only barely profitable. Du Pont is now improving the versatility of Corfam-in order to expand its big market from shoes to luggage and apparel-and trying...
...technologies such as nylon, the first all-synthetic fiber, and neoprene, the first U.S. commercial synthetic rubber, have sprung from Du Pont's cornucopian test tubes. Last year 175 manufacturers built the tops of 12 million pairs of shoes with Du Pont's three-year-old synthetic Corfam, which is supposed to look, feel and "breathe" like natural leather. Early this year, after twelve years and $8,000,000 in research, the company invaded the rich pharmaceutical field by marketing an antiflu drug named Symmetrel, which can be taken orally as either a pill or syrup. Only...