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Mexico's Pill Pioneer
by Gerald S. Cohen
The steroids race
An early corporate portrait. In later life, Rosenkranz has used his prestige to argue for increased government investment in science and research in Mexico.
(Photo courtesy George Rosenkranz) |
The first step in achieving his high ambitions for Syntex was to unravel the mysteries of synthetically manufacturing other major steroids considered so critical to disease prevention. For about a decade, three teams of chemists in Switzerland, at Columbia University in New York, and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., had been working on isolating steroid hormones found in the adrenal glands. The U.S. government was intensely interested in learning more about this class of hormones, called corticoids, and in 1940 began funding cooperative research in this important field. In 1946, scientists at Merck & Co. Inc. had succeeded in synthesizing cortisone from animal-sourced materials through a 36-step process considered too tedious and expensive for industrial purposes. The stakes were raised on finding a better synthesis process when a chemist at the Mayo Clinic revealed in 1948 that he had successfully used small doses of the Merck-produced cortisone to heal severely arthritic patients. He underscored the miraculous benefits of the compound by distributing movies of bedridden patients who were able to get up and dance after only a day of cortisone treatment.
The movies helped set off a race to efficiently synthesize cortisone--something that approached the 1950s equivalent of the space race. Newsmagazines followed closely the progress of the competing firms. The major players were two research teams from Harvard University, a team from Merck, and a group of upstarts from Mexico City. Since his arrival at Syntex, Rosenkranz had been assembling a dream team of young scientific prodigies from around the world who one day would develop international reputations of their own. Among them were Carl Djerassi and Alex Zaffaroni. After synthesizing progesterone, Rosenkranz had engaged them in the synthesis of other steroids. In 1946, the Syntex team synthesized a substance closely related to the male hormone testosterone; in 1949 they manufactured the female hormones estrone and estradiol. The discoveries were good practice for the cortisone race.
Using diosgenin as a starter material, the Syntex scientists worked full tilt to develop a breakthrough. At one point in 1950-51, the team worked two shifts, seven days a week to keep up with the competition. In a photo finish, Syntex won the race in the summer of 1951 over its better-funded and more prestigious U.S. competitors. Life magazine announced the victory with the headline "Cortisone from a Giant Yam: Scientists with Average Age of 27 Find Big Supply in Mexican Root." Harper's Magazine wrote that the cortisone race "also underscores a point often overlooked in a big-money age. Big minds rather than big research budgets lead to big discoveries."
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