CHAU2162 This is a rare opportunity to secure this original personally hand signed letter from Dr Paul Janssen (12 September 1926 – 11 November 2003) who was a Belgian physician and founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, a giant pharmaceutical company with over 20,000 employees which is now a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. This vintage letter from nearly 40 years ago is surely the ultimate opportunity for his autograph being on his official headed paper and (bar folded twice where originally posted) is otherwise mint condition.
In 1956, Janssen received his habilitation in pharmacology with pro venia legendi ("permission to lecture") designation for his thesis on Compounds of the R 79 type. He left the university and established what would become Janssen Pharmaceutica. On 11 February 1958 he developed haloperidol, a major breakthrough in the treatment of schizophrenia. Working with his team, he developed the fentanyl family of drugs and a number of anesthetic agents, including droperidol and etomidate. One of the anti-diarrheal drugs he developed, diphenoxylate (Lomotil), was used in the Apollo program. In 1959, Janssen synthesized the potent opioid fentanyl based on SAR studies of meperidine. In the 1970s, he would improve upon the potency of fentanyl with the synthesis of Carfentanil. In 1985, Janssen Pharmaceutical became the first Western pharmaceutical company to establish a factory in the People's Republic of China (Xi'an). In 1995, together with Paul Lewi, he founded the Center for Molecular Design, where he and his team used a supercomputer to search candidate molecules for potential AIDS treatments.Altogether Janssen and his cadre of scientists discovered more than eighty new medications, four of which are on the WHO list of essential medicines. In 1991, he was elevated to the Belgian nobility by King Baudouin receiving the title of Baron.
