ABSTRACT
During the 1880s, Swiss and German chemical companies, such as Ciba, Sandoz, Bayer, and Hoechst, began manufacturing drugs based on organic chemistry and synthetic dies. In the later part of the 19th century, in the United States and United Kingdom, Wyeth, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Warner-Lambert, and Burroughs Wellcome emerged and began mass production of pharmaceuticals. This chapter shows how penicillin was discovered in the United Kingdom and massively produced at Pfizer. In this vein, it is important to mention the streptomycin discovery, which was one of the most important victories over tuberculosis (TB), a fatal human infectious disease. After penicillin and streptomycin were discovered, with industry-wide learning process involved, American and British pharmaceutical companies began to take over entire global market. Following World War II, there was a high need for antibiotics, particularly penicillin, resulting in pharmaceutical companies investing heavily in R&D.
