Anthony Harrelson - Pharmacy Developments: Anti-Infection Drugs

One of the most important steps towards modern medicine came when we were able to develop drugs to combat infection. Before this hallmark in history, it was very common for people to die of infections suddenly and violently. This would even occur in hospitals, as there was no way to combat back an infection when it started. Before drugs were invented to halt infection, the savage and unreliable method used was amputation, which would only be possible if the infection didn’t occur near vital organs or body parts. The development for drugs that would combat infections and disease started out with the main focus of battling pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. That is because these were the three top killing diseases of the time. It wasn’t until 1911, that arsphenamine, an anti-infective drug developed by a chemist named Alfred Bertheim, would help make the first big strides in this relatively new field.

The way that this medicine was developed, was when it was observed that bacteria would be selective with which dyes that it would absorb. It was also noted that if you were to infuse the dye with a toxin like arsenic, the resulting property would encourage bacteria to absorb the dye and the toxin, killing the unwanted bacteria. This became known as selective toxicity, and would pave the way for the first effective treatment of syphilis, which was once a disease that carried a death sentence.

Many different structural changes and augmentations of synthetic compounds would find that this selective toxicity was possible in many different forms. A crossover between industrial scientists and a German dye industry would then lead to the first ever class of antibiotics. These new antibiotics called sulfonamides, were far less toxic to people and could be used effectively to combat infections caused by a wider variety of pathogens. Domagk, one of the developing scientists, won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for this discovery.

Anthony Harrelson is the CEO of a Biopharmaceutical company who is paving the way for the future of combatting diseases like HIV and Ebola.

Anthony Harrelson - Pharmaceuticals: The Invention of Insulin

Especially in the modern world, drugs and medicine have been very influential on our everyday lives. They have offered ways to cure disease, treat symptoms, and alleviate general discomfort for quite some time now. Throughout the history of pharmacy, there have been a few hallmark moments that mark a huge shift in the industry, one that would change the way that we look at it forever. One such shift came in the form of a series of experiments being performed all the way from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. These experiments would reveal that diabetes was caused by the absence of a necessary chemical compound in the body that was naturally produced by the pancreas. This would begin the attempts to develop an adequate substitute for that substance to treat and try to cure diabetes.

In 1869, Oskar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering would figure out that you could even cause diabetes in dogs if you removed their pancreas. This cemented the fact that the pancreas was the sole producer of the substance that was in short supply for those who were diabetic. Then, in the 1920s, a professor from Canada by the name of Frederick Banting would expand on this study, finding that if you injected the dog with an extract from a healthy pancreas, it would stop the diabetic symptoms the dog was exhibiting. It was not long before that extract would be shown to work on people. This was a great stride in medicine and science as a diabetic therapy. Unfortunately, developing insulin was quite difficult because it was all but impossible to produce the substance in raw enough quantities and purity to have a substantial effect.

Eventually, a chemist by the name of George Walden would discover that if you slightly adjusted the pH of a pancreatic extract, it allowed for a relatively pure insulin grade to be produced. This would then establish the standard procedure after a fight ensued where a similar purification method was being developed. Before this treatment, people with diabetes were only expected to live for a few months.

Anthony Harrelson is the CEO of a Biopharmaceutical company that strives to combat and destroy disease.

Anthony Harrelson - History of Pharmaceuticals: Epinephrine and Norepinephrine

The modern day pharmaceutical industry has a very interesting and intricate history that involves a number of hallmark events in human history. Pharmacy has been useful for man throughout the ages, first used crudely by witch doctors and barbers in the form of herbs, to the first synthetically developed drugs like antibiotics. Pharmaceuticals have had a dramatic impact on how we view the world today, and one of the things that paved the way for this field, was the development of epinephrine and norepinephrine. At the end of the 1800s, many doctors and physicians, chemists and bioengineers were studying the profound effects that adrenal extracts had on the bodies many different tissues. They discovered that these adrenal compounds served as a chemical signaling mechanism for the body, which would serve as a foundation for developing new and more powerful drugs.

It was found that there were ways to manipulate the bodies systems, including raising the blood pressure and cardiovascular activity of a person using adrenal extracts. This was particularly useful to surgeons for treating patients with shock. After this discovery, many companies would develop products with adrenaline-based extracts acting as the primary ingredient. A man by the name of John Abel would then identify this adrenal agent as epinephrine, which he found in a sulfate salt. This discovery would later help a chemist by the name of Jokichi Takamine develop a more refined method to extract epinephrine in its purest state. This would go on to be used in the treatment of asthma attacks in the form of an inhalant, as well as a way to treat and combat nasal congestion and other breathing issues and conditions.

Epinephrine continued to show its medical uses throughout the years. A derivative of the substance was noreprinephrine. This also helped for amphetamine to be developed, which was first used medically as a nasal decongestant. It would later be found to be useful for problems with narcolepsy and some neurological disorders, including depression.

Anthony Harrelson is the CEO of White Oaks Industry Inc., a pharmaceutical company working on cures for Ebola and HIV.