Reactions

'Top Pharmaceuticals'

Congratulations on the "Top Pharmaceuticals" issue (C&EN, June 20). I am a 57-year-old Ph.D. chemist working toward a master's of public health degree. I applaud this eloquent reaffirmation of the role of chemistry in public health. While we are bombarded almost every day by news reports about issues such as adverse drug effects and the high cost of medications, it is good to be reminded of the undisputed contribution that these drugs have made toward human health. The stories detailing each drug's history are rich and varied, and they amply illustrate the scientific challenges facing those in academia and industry who work to create and test new drug candidates. The material in this issue could go a long way toward reacquainting the public with chemistry. I hope the American Chemical Society will consider creating a televised version of this story.

David C. Roberts
Vienna, Va.

In the "Top Pharmaceuticals" special issue, I thought the introductory article on the drug industry by Arthur A. Daemmrich and Mary Ellen Bowden was very good (page 28). I particularly liked the way the authors showed how the industry grew. My only quarrel with their presentation was the complete lack of information on the sales approaches of the industry in recent years. The authors failed to mention the direct marketing of drugs to the consumer through television, newspapers and magazines, and even radio. This is not trivial and costs as much as research done by the industry, and it is paid for by the public through tax write-offs. In my opinion, this is the major reason for the loss of confidence by the public in the industry. You can't act like a snake oil salesman and expect to be treated like a medical savant.

Donald G. Kubler
Marietta, S.C.

In the otherwise excellent introduction in "Top Pharmaceuticals," it was disappointing to see the discovery phase of the antibiotics story (apart from penicillin) virtually ignored. I quote: "During the advent of the antibiotic era, drug firms screened thousands of soil samples in a global search for antibiotic agents" (page 34). It was not mentioned that this endeavor was specifically promoted by the pioneering work of Selman A. Waksman of Rutgers University, who was the first to discover several antibiotics in soil microorganisms. These included the antituberculosis drug streptomycin, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1952. Yet the next sentence in the article refers to "streptomycin (Merck)." Surely the discoverer is at least as important as the manufacturer and should have been named, especially in view of the fact that antibiotics, most of which come from soil microorganisms, represent the primary pharmaceutical breakthrough of the 20th century.

Anthony B. Mauger
Kensington, Md.

Historical research, including examination of contemporaneous Bayer laboratory notebooks, has established definitively that the inventor of Bayer's aspirin was Arthur Eichengrün (page 46). Felix Hoffmann was a laboratory assistant working under the direction of Eichengrün. Eichengrün was managing a systematic series of experiments to find effective analgesics.

It was Nazis who expunged Eichengrün from the history of aspirin because he was Jewish, and it was Nazis who invented the tale of a long-suffering relative (uncle in the versions that I have heard, not father) of Hoffmann's as the supposed inspiration for his work on salicylic acid derivatives. As for Hoffmann's name on the U.S. patent, that was presumably due to Bayer's maneuvering with respect to the patent law of the time.

The Germans have now acknowledged Eichengrün as the actual inventor. It is high time for ACS's official organ to cease repeating the Nazi calumny that the inventor was someone else.

Stephen J. Tauber
Lexington, Mass.

Having been instrumental in the origins of ivermectin, I read with interest the article on the drug in the "Top Pharmaceuticals" issue (page 78). It is particularly apt, as 2004 marked the 25th anniversary of the discovery of avermectin and next year represents the 25th anniversary of the introduction of ivermectin onto the global animal health market. However, I was disappointed at the lack of recognition of the Japanese contribution to what can rightly be viewed as one of the world's most successful animal and human health drugs.

My research group at the Kitasato Institute (KI), in Tokyo, played a solo role in collecting and screening soil samples to isolate the organism that produces avermectin (Streptomyces avermectinius, originally named S. avermitilis). We subsequently sent it, along with many other promising candidates, to Merck's laboratory in the U.S. for specialist screening, as per the agreement governing the work undertaken in the collaborative research project established between KI and the Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories. We also played a subsequent and significant role in the discovery and development of avermectin, leading to work on the dihydro derivative, ivermectin. Discovery and development was truly the work of a large, diverse, and highly skilled team of individuals, as all members of that team will be the first to admit. None of us could have foreseen the tremendous impact that our work would have.

Following Merck's introduction of ivermectin onto the global animal health market in 1981, the royalties earned by KI from the massive income generated by the drug have been put to good use in Japan. They have funded further R&D work at KI and paid for the construction of a 440-bed hospital, a vaccine production facility, and a nursing school, and have also been employed to promote the use of art and music in helping holistic healing in hospital surroundings.

In view of the above, I was saddened that the Japanese contribution did not merit a mention in your article, other than that the origins of this astonishing compound lay in Japanese soil.

Satoshi Omura
Tokyo

I liked your special issue on top pharmaceuticals and much enjoyed reading it. But it does show signs of being written in the States.

I first noticed this in the article on penicillin (page 96). This was developed in the U.S. during the war because the nation was safe from bombing raids at the time.

But the most egregious example came in the essay on vaccines, where Edward Jenner, who first used vaccination with cowpox to prevent later attacks of smallpox, is described as working in the U.S. (page 130). No, sir; he was English.

David A. H. Taylor
Scarborough, Yorks, U.K.

I began to peruse the pictures from years past. The photo of a chemist loading one of three large chromatography columns has what appears to be a small pinup decaled onto each column (page 27). Having witnessed such things even into the late 1970s, I can believe it, but looking back now makes me marvel at how archaic the workplace was back then. Now the only females in the lab are running the separations, not adorning the equipment. Amen, I say.

Laurence W. Reilly Jr.
Doylestown, Pa.