Medical Research Council Britain

The antisyphilitic drug arsphenamine (Salvarsan) had been discovered in Germany in 1907 and was imported into Britain until the outbreak of the First World War, when the Board of Trade issued licences to certain British manufacturers to make it. Each batch had to be submitted to the Medical Research Council for approval before marketing. The problem was that although it was synthetic, and hence the chemical identity of the product was knotvn, highly toxic impurities could only be detected by biological testing. 

It was quite clear that the scale of production in the William Dunn School could barely provide enough material for further clinical trials hence, Florey tried to elicit the help of drug companies. ICI, Burroughs Wellcome, Boots and a small London company, Kemball-Bishop, all showed interest but due to the exigencies of war-tom Britain, none had sufficient funds for speculative research. They were probably also worried that a chemical synthesis of penicillin would be devised once its structure had been elucidated thus, money spent on culture technology would be wasted. They were also probably worried about the patent situation. Florey had mentioned this issue to the Medical Research Council, which had provided a modest amount of research money. Apparently, the senior MRC officials were vehemently opposed to patenting on the grounds that it was unethical for medical researchers to benefit from their discoveries. The American pharmaceutical companies suffered no such qualms of conscience, and in due course the British companies had to pay royalties to their US counterparts before they could produce penicillins. 

Their leader does not appear in the photograph. Dr Paul Fildes, at that time in his early sixties, was arguably Britain s top bacteriologist a Fellow of the Royal Society, founder of the British Journal of Experimental Pathology and editor of the great nine-volume System of Bacteriology published by the Medical Research Council in 19 31. 

For studies on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Sir John Comforth received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1975 (sharing it with Vladimir Prelog, page 188). Bom in Australia in 1917, he studied at the University of Sydney and received a Ph.D. from Oxford. His major research was carried out in laboratories at Britain s Medical Research Council and in laboratories at Shell Research Ltd. He was knighted in 1977. 

This work was supported by the Medical Research Council of Great Britain. 

The early development of the cephalosporins was affected by change in official policy in Britain. In 1949 the National Research Development Corporation (N.R.D.C.) was set up under an Act of Parliament to develop and exploit inventions in the national interest, and the Corporation decided almost from its creation that an involvement in the cephalosporin project might be rewarding. Adjustment to this situation required a volte-face on the part of some of us in Oxford. During the work on penicillin it had been the view of the Medical Research Council that those in academic medical research should make no attempt to obtain patent protection for discoveries that might have commercial value. 

Dr. Grayzel is a Career Scientist (1-233) of the Health Research Council of the City of New York. Dr. Tavill is a Sir Henry Wellcome Travelling Fellow for the Medical Research Council of Great Britain. Dr. Hunt is a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, England. 

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