1951

Bayer in Germany and Squibb and Hoffman La Roche in US simultaneously discover isoniazid (Neoteben, Marsilid, Rimifon) as final “wonder drug” in war against TB. Isoniazid was a derivative of the thiosemicarbazones discovered by Domagk and colleagues at Bayer in Germany. First report in US was by Robitzek and Selikoff on their six-month trial of isoniazid with 97 consecutive patients with pulmonary TB at NJ’s Sea View Hospital, published in Am. Rev. Tuberculosis in April1952 (F. Ryan, 351-357; Daniel, 217-18). But neither La Roche, Squibb nor Bayer could patent isoniazid, since two Prague chemists had synthesized it back in 1912 (albeit not apropos any medical therapy) (359). And tubercle bacilli developed resistant to isoniazid with “effortless ease” so that its future “could only lie in combination therapy” (377). In 1953, isoniazid became generally available to all TB patients, and the 839 TB hospitals in the US rapidly closed down; by 1972, there were only four TB hospitals in US (Daniel, 219).