W. K. Buckley Ltd., maker of the Buckley's Mixture cough medicine the company proudly admits "tastes awful", has been sold to pharmaceutical giant Novartis, CBC Business News has learned.

Novartis, the Swiss-based behemoth with 2001 sales of $19.1 billion US, has taken over ownership of the Buckley's brand and formulas.

Frank Buckley – the founder's son and the company 's current pitchman – will become a consultant, and a company owned by the Buckley family will continue to make the cough medicine under contract from Novartis.

Frank Buckley

The purchase price is not being disclosed.

"We are delighted and proud to have been chosen by Frank Buckley to carry on the Buckley's tradition," Novartis Consumer Health Canada president Stan Thompson said. "Novartis feels there is great opportunity to grow this trusted brand," he said.

The Buckley company was founded by pharmacist W.K. Buckley in Toronto back in 1920. Soon after, Buckley created the company's signature product, Buckley's Mixture.

Sales of the product soared – along with the company's brand recognition – after a series of television commercials in the 1980s that played on the bad taste of Buckley's Mixture.

"It tastes awful. And it works" was the commercial slogan the company still uses today.

Buckley's remained a family-run business for the last 82 years, with about 30 employees manufacturing and selling its herbal-based products around the world.

It billed itself as the last privately-held company in Canada selling cough and cold remedies.