Stewart Adams (chemist)

Stewart Adams OBE (born 1923), is a British chemist, who was the main part of a team from Boots that developed ibuprofen in the early 1960s.

Early life

Adams was born in Byfield, Northamptonshire.[1] His father was a railwayman, and grew up in a rural farming area in Northamptonshire.[2] Adams had two older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother.

Adams went to Byfield Council School, then his parents moved in 1933 to Doncaster, and he went to Doncaster Grammar School,[3] then March Grammar School (it became the Neale-Wade School in 1969, and is now Neale-Wade Academy) and left school aged 16 in 1939. He became a pharmacist, on a three-year apprenticeship, at a Boots UK chemist in March, Cambridgeshire. From this he gained an interest in science, and Boots paid for him to do a B.Pharm degree at University College, Nottingham, which he was awarded in 1945.

Career

He rejoined the Boots company in 1945 and worked on their project to produce penicillin. He was moved to the research department of Boots and he went on to research rheumatoid arthritis. This was followed by a PhD in pharmacology at Leeds University returning to Boots in 1952.[4] It was funded by a £300 research scholarship from the Pharmaceutical Society that was matched by Boots and focussed on the heparin-histamine relationships.[5] At the time, the main medicine for the condition were corticosteroids, which had side effects.

Ibuprofen

Structure of the ibuprofen NSAID

In 1953, Adams began work on other chemical substances that could have a pain-killing effect, and have less side effects, centred on rheumatoid arthritis. He worked in a house in the south of Nottingham for many years, as the main labs had been destroyed in the war, then moved to Boots Pharmaceuticals new building on Pennyfoot Street in 1960 where there was a radioactive lab. This is now BioCity Nottingham.

Four substances that went to clinical trial failed, and the last - ibuprofen - worked. He took the first dose himself and used the drug to treat his own headaches before it was on the market. In 1969 ibuprofen was licensed as a prescription drug in the UK, and in 1974 in the USA. Ibuprofen became on sale for general pharmacy (over-the-counter) in 1983, as Nurofen. Adams said in 2007 "Getting the drug approved by the two countries with the toughest regulatory authorities – the UK and the US – was a goal I wanted to achieve. For me, that was the most exciting time of all."[2]

He retired as Head of Pharmacological Sciences at Boots in 1983.[5]

Personal life

He married his wife, Mary, who was a teacher, in 1950, just before he moved to Leeds where he was introduced to Rugby League. He lives in Redhill, Nottinghamshire in the house he moved into in 1955.[6] in the north of Nottingham. He has become a Freeman of the City of Nottingham.[7] In 1987. Adams became a Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

References

  1. ↑ "DEFINE_ME_WA" (PDF). Cell.
  2. 1 2 Victoria Lambert (8 October 2007). "Dr Stewart Adams: 'I tested ibuprofen on my hangover'". Telegraph.co.uk.
  3. ↑ "My School Days: Dr Stewart Adams". Nottingham Post.
  4. ↑ "The hangover that led to the discovery of ibuprofen". BBC Magazine. 15 November 2015. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
  5. 1 2 "Leeds alum invented ibuprofen". Leeds Alumni Online. University of Leeds. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  6. ↑ "Stewart Adams, the man who discovered ibuprofen". Nottingham Post December 2012.
  7. ↑ Nottingham City Council

External links

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