Sir James Black was born in Scotland in 1924. He studied medicine at the University of St Andrews. His work at SK&F on establishing the role of the histamine H₂-receptor in acid secretion leading to the discovery of antagonists must be considered his most significant achievement. It followed on naturally from his pioneering research carried out at ICI on beta-adrenogenic antagonists, or beta-blockers. On leaving SK&F in 1973, he took up the chair of Pharmacology at University College London. Four years later, he moved to Wellcome as Director of Therapeutic Research. In 1984 he was named Professor of Analytical Pharmacology at Kings College London. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988.

C. Robin Ganellin, born in London 1934, read chemistry and took his Ph.D. at Queen Mary College London. Following postdoctoral research at MIT, he joined SK&F in 1960 as a medicinal chemist and eventually became Vice President of Research at Welwyn. In 1986 he was appointed to the SK&F chair of Medicinal Chemistry at University College London. He received numerous awards from learned societies for his work on histamine H₂ antagonists.

Graham J. Durant was born in 1934 in Wales and obtained his first degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Birmingham. Following postdoctoral work at the State University of Iowa, he joined SK&F in 1959. At the time he had a particular interest in guanidine chemistry which proved to be invaluable in the development of cimetidine. He became Head of Medicinal Chemistry before moving to establish the Center for Drug Design and Development at the University of Toledo in 1987 where he became Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. In 1992, he became Senior Director of Chemistry at Cambridge Neurosciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

William Duncan who was Director of Research gave his unwavering support through all the low periods and when closure of the research program seemed likely.

John C. Emmett joined SK&F in 1965 and immediately became part of the team working on the H₂ antagonist problem. Following the successful work leading to cimetidine, he moved into the area of selective thyromimetics and later became Head of Medicinal Chemistry.

Michael Parsons provided the essential pharmacological support characterizing the new receptor and the antagonist activity of the compounds made.

United States Development Research

R. Lee Webb was born in Australia in 1944. He obtained his bachelors degree with honors from the University of Melbourne and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University in 1969. After two years of post doctoral work at Indiana University he joined Smith Kline & French Laboratories as a medicinal chemist in 1971. Following work on the anthelmintics oxibendazole and albendazole (Zentel) he teamed up with George Wellman to form the Process Chemistry group in 1975 for the work on Tagamet®.

George Wellman was born in Detroit in 1945. He entered Kalamazoo College in 1963 and received a B.A. in 1967. Staying in chemistry and in Kalamazoo, he continued his studies at Western Michigan University where he received a M.A. degree in 1969 and a Ph.D. in 1972. He was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship and continued his postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan. He joined Smith Kline & French Laboratories in 1973 working in process chemistry at the Spring Garden laboratories in Philadelphia.

Charles E. Berkoff and Elvin L. Anderson initiated the work to identify more efficient manufacturing processes. Bing Lam, Wilford Mendelson, Joseph Lewis, and Cliff Labaw worked with Wellman and Webb and were key contributors to the search for efficient processes for manufacturing cimetidine.

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