Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 206-209. (Budapest, 2009)

KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK —COMMUNICATIONS - Székely, József I.: Szabálytalan gyászbeszéd az utolsó szocialista gyógyszerkutató mammutvállalat (a Gyógyszerkutató Intézet, a korábbi Gyógyszeripari Kutató Intézet) kimúlása alkalmából

Székely, J. /.. Irregulär obituary to the death of the last socialist drug research mammoth 221 This way though neither efegatran nor talampanel have become registered medicines both opened a new subchapter in the textbooks of pharmacology. The long agony started already in the late sixties when the pharmaceutical factories installed their own research laboratories. Thus the former partners gradually became rivals. Then in 1982 the government scrapped the independence of IDR and declared it ajoint possession of the six Hungárián pharmaceutical works. It was probably the Guinness record of stupidity. (Otherwise this decision contravened even the existing communist laws.) Since the factories also worked on "reproductive patents" and developed new drugs, by the "virtue" of this decision they became the rivals ofthe IDR, but they remained simultaneously its business partners and from that time on they were also its owners. Otherwise, in the eighties the market economy was already taking shape in Hungary, the state-owned pharmaceutical companies fiercely competed with each other for the shrinking domestic and Comecon market but according to this decision they should have conducted research jointly at an alien place, at the IDR. With this verdict the fate of the IDR was sealed, nevertheless it still fought for survival for a quarter of Century. Becoming the lDR's owners it was the Obligation ofthe factories to provide the IDR with research contracts but their own interest was not to use the patents developed at the IDR (whether new manufacturing technologies, or new molecules were licensed), finally the researchers of the factories also wanted to have extra income from patents and the CEO's of factories were not happy to share the commercial profit with the IDR. For this reason the factories reluctantly gave some research contracts to the IDR, but whenever possible they utilized their own intellectual properties. Around 1990 with fall of the communism the Situation became even worse. Firstly the new, western owners of the factories did not consider it their morál duty to subsidize the IDR with "sham" research contracts any more. Secondly, under western pressure the ureproductive" patents were declared, illegal, even retroactively. With these changes the IDR lost all its income. In the nineties one more attempt was made, the director in office at that time tried to turn the IDR into a profit oriented contract research institution. It was a good idea, but the big infrastructure, the maintenance of the maze of buildings, the salary ofthe oversized staff and the in house bureaucracy gobbled up all the income. For this reason the layoffs began. Since the cash strapped IDR could not cover the enormous severance payments, always the youngest coworkers were laid off namely they were entitled to less compensation. So the staff worn out with age and so did the equipment too, since there was no money to buy state-of-the-art research instruments. In 1997 came the apparent "salvation", the factories sold the institute to an American firm (Paramount Capital Investment, Delaware), they were happy to get rid ofthe IDR. The euphoria over the first privatization was so big that even late Senator Tom Lantos attended the ceremony and the event was commemorated by an editorial in the prestigious journal ScienceThen it turnéd out that the new owner was not interested in research, it was a financial investor (a holding Company), its only aim was to resell IDR with due profit. So it did not even try to tackle the underlying fundamental problems of the IDR, it only spent some money for window-dressing. Some corridors and several laboratories received a new coat of paint, some wooden doors were replaced by Perspex sling doors to impress the potential buyers, whom always the "rejuvenated" parts ofthe IDR were shown. 1 Stone R.: Bailout for Drug Research Institute Science, 280 (1998) 372.