[Marius Tausk (1902-1990), influential endocrinologist and producer of medicines; a retrospect to mark the centenary of his birth]. / Marius Tausk (1902-1990), invloedrijk endocrinoloog en producent van geneesmiddelen; terugblik bij zijn honderdste geboortedag.

Marius Tausk, born in Sarajevo, studied medicine at Graz in Austria. In 1926, he attended a socialist youth rally in Amsterdam. Whilst there, he met Prof. Ernst Laqueur, a pharmacologist in Amsterdam, who offered him a position at Organon, a newly-founded pharmaceutical company in Oss, the Netherlands. He remained in the Netherlands and became the driving force behind this innovative company. Tausk made many contributions to new developments across the field of endocrinology, including the discovery of the adrenal steroids (together with T. Reichstein, Nobel Prize Laureate in 1950), and the development of oral contraceptive pills. He was astute enough to quickly patent the first corticosteroids. He could quickly extract the essential elements from an information source and disseminate this in five languages. His sharp judgment brought him friends and admirers, yet also those who feared him. In 1937 he was appointed as a private lecturer at the Medical Faculty of Utrecht University and in 1956 he was made Special Professor of Theoretical Endocrinology. He was awarded a number of scientific distinctions including two honorary doctorates. In 1949 he was honoured with the Knighthood of the Order of The Netherlands Lion.

[Laqueur and Organon. The university laboratory and the pharmaceutical industry in the Netherlands]. / Laqueur en Organon. Het universitaire laboratorium en de farmaceutische industrie in Nederland.

Since the 1970s cooperation between universities and pharmaceutical firms is business as usual. This has not always been the case. The first alliances between academic scientists and the pharmaceutical industry can be traced back to the 1920s. Compared to the U.S. and most other European countries, the creation of networks between the Dutch academy and industry shows a rather peculiar pattern that is illustrative in clarifying how the relationships between scientists and the pharmaceutical companies were built. Dutch scientists could not ally themselves with the pharmaceutical industry, simply because no Dutch pharmaceutical company specialized in organpreparations existed prior to the 1920s. This situation forced scientists to opt for the strongest form of alliance they could create, namely to take part in the founding of a pharmaceutical company. Ernst Laqueur, a professor in pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam, was one of the three founders of Organon, the Dutch pharmaceutical firm that was founded in 1923. Based on an analysis of the early history of sex endocrinology, this paper examines the creation of networks between Laqueur and Organon. The paper concludes that the university laboratory played a crucial role in the development of Organon. Organon was dependent on Laqueurs laboratory for the provision of the required biological essay techniques in order to manufacture standardized hormone products, Moreover, Laqueur mediated all the contacts between Organon and the clinic, required for the clinical testing of hormones and the provision of raw materials for the making of hormones into chemicals and drugs.