Medicine man's vision is to get Glaxo on warpath.

• Position: Pres. and CEO George Morrow's growth strategy for Glaxo Wellcome Inc.

As a young drug salesman for Merck & Co. Inc. 18 years ago, George Morrow called on a Manhattan doctor and presented his business card, which described him as an "antibiotics specialist."

"What makes you an antibiotics specialist?" the doctor barked.

"I didn't have a comeback," Morrow recalls. "So I came clean and said, 'Because it is on my card.'"

The doctor laughed and wound up prescribing Merck antibiotics. Now Morrow, 47, faces a more difficult sales job: convincing investors and customers that he has the right prescription for Research Triangle Park-based Glaxo Wellcome Inc. Morrow became president and CEO of the company after his predecessor and mentor, Robert Ingram, became president and CEO of Glaxo Wellcome Inc.'s British parent.

U.S. sales hit $5.6 billion in 1998, but growth slowed from 4% in 1996 to less than 1% last year. One reason: falling sales of two big sellers, antiulcer drug Zantac and anti-herpes drug Zovirax. U.S. patents for both expired in 1997, allowing competition from cheaper generics.

Under Ingram, the U.S. subsidiary diversified revenue by developing drugs for migraines and bowel and respiratory problems. Despite a 60% drop in U.S. sales of Zantac and Zovirax, sales of other drugs - 92% of the total - rose 23%.

Morrow plans to continue pushing new drugs through the pipeline, focusing on central-nervous-system treatments. "The company has withstood the patent expirations," he says. "The challenge now is to start growing this business as aggressively as possible."

Aggressive growth is nothing new for Morrow, who stands 6 feet 5 inches and played forward on his college basketball team. He earned a bachelor's in chemistry from Southampton College, part of Long Island University, in 1974. In 1977, he earned a master's in biochemistry at Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia.

He taught chemistry for a while but grew restless. A friend suggested he blend his passion for science with business. He earned an MBA at Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1981. Soon after, he joined New Jersey-based Merck, rising from salesman to vice president of marketing before moving to Glaxo Inc. in 1992. In his first job there, as vice president of a sales and marketing division specializing in drugs for central-nervous-system disorders, he took the division from start-up to 800 employees in seven months - a whirlwind experience he says is the most fun he's had in his career.

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