1948

Lederle Labs (owned by American Cyanamid) receives U.S. Patent for new soil-based bacterial antibiotic, Aureomycin (tetracycline, the first broad spectrum antibiotic effective against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria (e.g., tetanus, typhoid fever) and initiates advertising blitz that inaugurates “the new marketing campaigns that quickly became standard practice” (Herzberg, 23). A year later, in 1950, Pfizer received a patent on its own tetracycline, Terramycin (oxytetracycline), essentially the same as Aureomycin (both Actinomyces), but with a side-chain difference that enabled Pfizer to get a separate patent.