Lecture 1: Introduction Flashcards
How old is the pharmaceutical Industry
60 years old
What was the estimated value of the industry by mid 1980’s
100 billion
How many pharmaceutical companies are there today?
> 10000
How many companies are international players?
~ 100
How many substances are produced for routine use in medicine
5000
Name the 4 drugs that was used before the 20th century.
Digitalis
Quinine
Ipecacuanha
Mercury
What is Digitalis?
Digitalis
(extracted from foxglove),
known to stimulate heart muscle,
was used to treat heart conditions.
What is Quinine?
Quinine
(extracted from Cinchona plants)
used to treat malaria.
What is Ipecacuanha?
Ipecacuanha
(extracted from Cephaelis plants)
used to treat dysentery
What is Mercury?
Mercury
(a heavy metal) used to treat syphilis
What led to the formation of the first pharmaceutical companies in the late 1800’s?
The successful synthesis of various artificial dyes, which proved to be therapeutically useful
What company synthesised Aspirin and in what year?
Bayer
1895
What happened in the 1930’s?
discovery and chemical synthesis of the antimicrobial sulpha drugs (derived from the red dye prontosil rubrum) that the pharmaceutical industry began to develop in earnest.
What are sulpha drugs derived from?
red dye prontosil rubrum
When did large scale industrial production of insulin begin?
1930’s
When was insulin first therapeutically used?
1920’s
What occured in the 1940’s?
the commencement of industrial scale penicillin manufacture and it was around this time that many of the current leading pharmaceutical companies were founded including;
1. Eli Lilly
2. Wellcome
3. Glaxo
4. Roche
When was the term Biopharmaceutical first used?
1980’s
What was the term biopharmaceutical first used to describe?
A class of therapeutic proteins produced by modern biotechnological techniques, specifically via genetic engineering or, in the case of monoclonal antibodies, by hybridoma technology.
What does the term Biopharmaceutical encompass?
Proteins
Nucleic acids
Whole cell based products
What are the 3 best known pharmaceutical companies?
Amgen
Biogen
Genentech
When was Amgen founded?
1980’s
What was Amgen founded as?
AMgen
(Applied Molecular Genetics)
How many people does Amgen now employ?
19,000
Making it one of the largest dedicated biopharmaceutical companies in existence
What is the revenue of Amgen?
~ $23 billion
Where is Amgen’s headquarters?
Thousand Oaks, California
When was Biogen founded?
Geneva, Switzerland 1978
