1925

Dutch firm Organon releases it first sex hormone preparation before the (disappointing) results of clinical trails were known, advising German and Dutch gynecological clinics to test Ovarnon first in female patients with menstrual disorders; then in 1926, it released an improved version, Menformon, as the “first standardized female sex hormone” (Oudshoorn II, 11-14). “In less than two years, the medical indications for female sex hormone therapy were thus extended from the treatment of menstrual disorders to the treatment of menopause, sterility, and the problems of the genital organs. After 1927, Organon extended the clinical trials for female sex hormone therapy to the psychiatric clinic, thus creating an even broader market in female sex hormones for treatment of schizophrenia and melancholia” (14). In clinical trials of 1932, Menformon was used with a complex of symptoms attributed to menopause, such as high BP, increased heart rate, headaches, and depression (15). In another trial of women being treated for rheumatism, “the hormonal treatment of these patients gradually extended from a specific therapy for obesity and rheumatism to a therapy for other diseases in elderly women” (15, 16). Standardized preparation of male sex hormones released by Organon in 1931 as Hombreol, as a treatment for prostate hypertrophy (17-18). Isolation of testosterone in Laqueur’s lab in 1935  Organon’s release of Testosteron in 1937 (19).