Grünenthal prohibited the research and manufacture of penicillin by German companies. When the ban was lifted, Grünenthal was the first company to introduce penicillin in the postwar period into the German market. This investment achieved a big financial boost for the company. Chemie Grünenthal synthesized thalidomide in 1954 and acquired a 20-year patent. Soon after obtaining a patent in April 1954, the company started clinical trials, and as early as November 1956, marketed the drug for the treatment of respiratory infections under the trade name Grippex, a combination drug that contained thalidomide, quinine, vitamin C, phenacetin, and acetylsalicylic acid. Researchers at
4-Aminosalicylic acid enzymatic activity. PAS was first synthesized by Seidel and Bittner in 1902. It was rediscovered by the Swedish chemist Jörgen Lehmann upon the report that the tuberculosis bacterium avidly metabolized salicylic acid. Lehmann first tried PAS as an oral TB therapy late in 1944. The first patient made a dramatic recovery. The drug proved better than streptomycin, which had nerve toxicity and to which TB could easily develop resistance. In the 1948, researchers at Britain's Medical Research Council demonstrated that combined treatment with streptomycin and PAS was superior to either drug alone, and established the principle of combination therapy for