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
Mycophenolic acid Mycophenolic acid Mycophenolic acid, also called mycophenolate, is an immunosuppressant drug used to prevent rejection in organ transplantation. It was initially marketed as the prodrug mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) to improve oral bioavailability. More recently, the salt mycophenolate sodium has also been introduced. Mycophenolate mofetil is marketed under the trade name CellCept and mycophenolate sodium as Myfortic. Discovered by an Italian medical scientist Bartolomeo Gosio in 1893, mycophenolic acid was the first antibiotic to be synthesised in pure and crystalline form. But its medical application was forgotten until two American scientists C.L. Alsberg and O.M. Black resynthesised it in 1912, and