Biochemie GmbH

Big River Zinc Corporation, 201, 220 Bihar Caustic Chemicals Ltd., 170 Bilbaina de Alquitranes, 202 Billiton Pic, See BHP Billiton Pic (UK), 207 BIMOL Research Laboratories Inc., 220 Biochemie GmbH, 143 BIODAC , ethylene oxide, 25 Biphenyl, 25... 

Brandi E, Margreiter H, Biochemie GmbH in Innsbruck, Austrian Patent 178,692... 

I am indebted to Dr. Hans Troger, Literary and Documentation, BIOCHEMIE GmbH, for the literature search by means of CAS on-line. 

Soon after the end of World War II, a small plant was established in the Tyrol, then part of the French occupied zone of Austria, in a closed-down brewery of the Austrian Brewing Corporation the Biochemie Kundl GmbH. Research in this establishment was entrusted to Richard Brunner (later professor at the Vienna University of Technology), who had witnessed the first experiments of a German research group under K. Bernhauer in Prague to produce penicillins during World War II. 

Considerable disappointment arose when it was found that the formation of phenoxymethyl penicillin had already been described, and patented, by O. Behrens from E. Lilly in the US, who had, however, not recognized its acid stability. Successive negotiations were able to settle this problem in a most satisfactory way for both sides and both companies were able to acquire leading positions as producers of oral penicillin. Biochemie Kundl GmbH., now part of Novartis Ltd., is still one of Austria s biotechnical companies most renowned for its production of antibiotics, enzymes and other specialties such as e.g. cyclosporin. Quite recently (1998), the company acquired the fermentation facilities of Hoechst Marion Roussel at Lrankfurt to enlarge its production capacity about twofold. 

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