Syntex, firm

Syntex A Nexus Firm Succeeds in Creating an Integrated Learning Base... 

Syntex was established in Mexico City in 1944 by two refugee scientists— a Hungarian and a German—in association with a chemist from Pennsylvania State University named Russell B. Marker, who had discovered a way to produce steroid hormones from the roots of a vine growing wild in Mexico. The company began selling extremely rare sex hormones in bulk to pharmaceutical firms. At this time the major innovator in this new field of anabolic steroids (male hormones) was an old-line pharmaceutical firm, Searle. ... 

In the 1950s, under the leadership of George Rosenkranz, another Hungarian, and Carl Djerassi, an American, embarked on the road from nexus to core. By 1956 these two innovating pioneers in the steroid field were ready to license Norethindrone, the basic compound from which the contraceptive pill would ultimately be produced. At the same time, the Ogdon Corporation, a financial services firm, acquired the Mexico-based Syntex and supplied its initial funding. 

The six firms are Merck, Eli Lilly, Syntex, Schering-Plough, Upjohn and Pfizer-... 

Ortho Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson Johnson, has had an ongoing contraceptive R D program. Eight companies that have discontinued Such R D are Syntex, Searle, Parke-Davis, Merck, Upjohn, Mead Johnson, Wyeth-Ayerst, and Eli Lilly (207). Wyeth-Ayerst, a subsidiary of American Home products, has renewed its contraceptive R D program in recent years, focusing on new forms of oral contraceptives (8,25 1). In addition, a relatively new, small firm, Gynco-Pharma, currently markets a copper IUD. Non-U.S. firms as well as universities and nonprofit foundations also carry on R D on new forms of birth control (207). 

In 1944, Marker founded together with two Mexican partners a pharmaceutical company, which he called Laboratories Syntex SA Synthesis in Mexico). However, the collaboration was not successful, and Marker left the firm almost a year later to form another company (Botanica-Mex S.A.). When his second attempt to buUd up a steroid business failed as weU, Marker brought in 1949 an abrupt end to his previous scientific career and moved into manufacturing and merchandising Mexican replicas of French silver artworks of the 18th century. 

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