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

222 Comm. de //ist. Artis Med. 206- 209 (2009) Reaching the brink of bankruptcy the IDR was sold to the second foreign owner, IVAX (in 1999). It was a really serious buyer creating a renaissance at the IDR. Being an enormous firm but manufacturing only generic products ("generic" means not protected by patent), its CEO's hoped to develop several original preparations at the IDR. IVAX was generous, it paid up the accumulated debt of the IDR, reequipped the outdated laboratories, drastically increased the salaries and hired (or rehired) new coworkers, etc. Unfortunately the research projects also multiplied, which actually meant splintering the budget of the otherwise honestly deserved new livelihood. Then the most promising new drug development project failed primarily due to sloppiness of the underlying biological research (it should have become a new drug against hypertrophy of the prostate gland) and the IVAX lost tens of millions in S. The other big project i.e. development of a nebulised preparation against asthma (etiprednol) was successful, but for some probably personal reasons the success of this research had not been appreciated. Allegedly, among others for this reason the IVAX "gave up" and merged with the Israeli firm TEVA, an even bigger generic giant (in 2005). The research workers of the IDR and TEVA quickly developed a good rapport in work (not a small feat in country with antiSemitic traditions), e.g. Hungárián and Israeli researchers working on the same project exchanged E-mails nearly on daily basis. Unfortunately the cooperation did not last long. In 2007 the TEVA got a new CEO who sought the opinion of an auditing firm. The accountants/auditors quickly discovered the evident truth that drug research, especially if started from scratch, is a highly risky business. Allegedly they advised TEVA to stop all kinds of preclinical research and to lay off the remaining staff of IDR and to seil its real estates, its main assets and to conduct preclinical research if necessary on contract basis. So was done in 2008. The main buyer (Aurigon, Germany with a division in an outskirt of Budapest) is a contract research laboratory (TEVA is one its main business partners), it employs a cohort of the former coworkers but it is neither a drug research institute nor the successor of the IDR in any sense of the word. Good bye IDR, good bye to the communist command economy and remember that there were so many successful (truly sometimes a bit shifty) research workers, who held out in Hungary even in the crazy age of communism. JÓZSEF I. SZÉKELY, MD, DSc titu/ary university professor Department Human Physiology, Faculty Medicine, Semmelweis University H-1089 Budapest Nagyvárad tér 4. HUNGARY