Between Business History and History of Science: The Franco-American Connection That Led to the Discovery of Antihistaminic Drugs

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org

Free and open to the public.

This talk is part of an in-progress investigation on the history of the discovery of the antihistaminic drugs and of chlorpromazine, one of the first psychotropic drugs. Antihistaminic drugs were discovered by two different research teams in the late 1930s and early 1940s: Daniel Bovet’s team at the Pasteur Institute and Bernard Halpern’s team at Rhône-Poulenc. His talk will stress the scientific and economic connections between French and U.S. pharmaceutical firms, which led to the synthesis of the first antihistaminic compounds. First, he will reconstruct the work of Daniel Bovet’s team on antihistamines at the Pasteur Institute and the work of Bernard Halpern’s team at Rhône-Poulenc. Second, he will explain the indirect role played by Merck & Company in the development of Antergan and Neo-Antergan at Rhône-Poulenc, as well as the role played by Rhône-Poulenc researchers in the development of Antihistine at Ciba Pharmaceuticals. Finally, he will use this case study to draw more general conclusions on the role of the history of science and of business history in the making of the contemporary pharmaceutical research system.

Daniele Cozzoli obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and is currently the “Ramon y Cajal” fellow (tenure track) at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. He has published a book on Descartes’s philosophy of science, as well as a number of papers on Mersenne’s optics and on the philosophy of mathematics in the sixteenth century. At present his researches are mainly devoted to the history of twentieth-century pharmacology, along with work on a book-length project on Daniel Bovet’s scientific work and on a couple of papers on the history of the Italian Health Institute and on the discovery of antihistamines. He is also researching Ismaël Boulliaud’s optics and Alessandro Piccolomini’s astronomy.