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A move to the United States
Substantial amounts of penicillin would be needed for the extensive clinical trials required to confirm the promise of the early
results, and to provide adequate supplies of the drug for therapeutic use if it did live up to its potential. Florey recognized that
large-scale production of penicillin was probably out of the question in Britain, where the chemical industry was fully absorbed in
the war effort. With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, Florey and his colleague Norman Heatley traveled to the United States
in the summer of 1941 to see if they could interest the American pharmaceutical industry in the effort to produce penicillin on a
large scale.
Yale physiologist John Fulton helped to put his British colleagues in touch with individuals who might be able to assist them in their
goal. They were referred to Robert Thom of the Department of Agriculture, a foremost mycologist and authority on the Penicillium mold,
and eventually to the Department's Northern Regional Research Laboratory (NRRL) in Peoria, Illinois, because of the expertise of its
Fermentation Division. This contact proved to be crucial to the success of the project, as the NRRL was a key contributor of
innovations that made large-scale production of penicillin possible.
The discovery and development of penicillin |
Penicillin research at Oxford |
A move to the United States |
Increasing the yield of penicillin |
The involvement of pharmaceutical companies |
The challenge of scale-up |
The war effort |
Landmark designation
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