Sandoz Laboratories

Psilocin has also been the object of considerable investigation using animals as subjects. Much of the initial work with psilocin, as well as other 4-hydroxy-tryptamine derivatives with alterations in the side chain and/or terminal amine, was performed at Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland (29,245). Subsequent investigations have shown that psilocin produces hyperthermia in rabbits (113), induces the head-twitch in mice (43), disrupts acquisition of avoidance behavior in rats (240), increases startle response magnitudes in rats (68), increases limb-flick behavior in cats (120), and produces discriminative stimulus effects in rats similar to those of 5-OMeDMT (59) (93). 

As is now well known, the potent psychogenic properties of LSD were discovered by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, who was synthesizing molecules for Sandoz Laboratories. In 1938, Hofmann was making drugs... 

Wasson s other main collaborator on the chemical aspects of the mushrooms was the renowned Albert Hofmann of the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, whose accidental discovery of the psychedelic properties of LSD in 1943 may well be regarded by future generations as one of the turning points of Western civilization, and who has devoted much of his professional life to the extraction of the active principles of various native hallucinogens, and their subsequent synthesis. 

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at Sandoz Laboratories synthesizes LSD. After initial testing on animals, Hoffman s subsequent accidental ingestion of the drug in 1943 reveals LSD s hallucinogenic properties. 

In 1979, Hofmann wrote an essay entitled LSD My Problem Child. In it, he described how he first synthesized LSD, his early experiments with the drug, related hallucinogenic drugs found in nature, and the events that led Sandoz Laboratories to abandon the drug. 

LSD, D-lysergic acid diethylamide This chemical was synthesized from ergot in 1938 by Albert Hoffman of the Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland. It is a potent hallucinogen in the microgram range. 

A further process, which is used on a technical scale and which, like the azide method, had its origin in the SANDOZ laboratories, employs lysergic acid chloride hydrochloride as the activated form (146, 92). Furthermore, the method developed in peptide chemistry, using N,N -carbonyldiimidazole as condensation agent (147), may be used to produce acid amides of lysergic acid and dihydrolysergic acid (148). 

Arcamone of Farmitalia S.A. Claviceps paspali), and Kobel at Sandoz Laboratories Claviceps purpurea) developed the fermentation of Claviceps fungus for industrial production. 

After almost 10 years two new pyridazinone derivatives have been developed in the Sandoz laboratories, differing from one another only with respect to one methyl group. The first of these is metflurazon, 4-chloro-5-dimethylamino-2-(a,a,a-trifluoro-m-tolyl)pyridazin-3-one (SAN 67064, 2). 

Chemical studies on ergot were begun in the nineteenth century, but the first breakthrough was not attained until 1918, when Arthur Stoll of the Sandoz laboratories... 

The uracils [27] bromacil (Du Pont, 1952), lenacil (Du Pont, 1974) and terbacil (Du Pont, 1966) were invented in the Du Pont laboratories, whereas the pyridazi-nones [28, 29], pyrazon (BASF, 1962) came out from research investigations in BASF and Sandoz laboratories. The phenylcarbamates [32] desmedipham and phenmedipham invented by Sobering AG are also included in the Cl group (HRAC classification) (Fig. 10.1). 

In 1953 a significant achievement was reported from the same university the elucidation of the structure of oxytocin by Hans Tuppy. Tuppy had just returned from Cambridge, England, where, as one of the principal coworkers of Sanger, he determined the amino acid sequence of the B-chain of insulin. In Vienna, almost singlehandedly and with the simplest means, he solved the sequence of oxytocin and published it a few months ahead of V. du Vigneaud (cf. p. 140). From Tuppy s associates H. Nesvadba, first at the University later at the SANDOZ laboratories in Vienna, studied problems of peptide synthesis. 

Independently horn us at Sandoz Laboratories, Agathos and Lee (30) studied the influence of amino acids on the production of CyA by T. inflatum and found an enhancing effect of externally supplied L-valine in a chemically defined medium, raising the final CyA titer to 710 mg/liter, compared with only 130 mg/liter without L-valine supplementation. Furthermore, Agathos and Chun refxirt that immobilization of T. inflatum spores into porous celite beads results in an up to threefold higher cyclosporin formation than for the free cell culture (31). 

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