Marine pharmacology in Australia. the roche research institute at dee why, New South Wales, 1974-81

Abstract

Hoffmann-La Roche supported the work of University of Queensland zoologist Robert Endean in the late 1960s, but the company's deepening interest in the prospect of 'drugs from the sea' led them to establish the Roche Research Institute of Marine Pharmacology (RRIMP) at Dee Why, New South Wales. It was headed by Dr Joe Baker, an Australian organic chemist who had researched marine natural products. RRIMP took advice from several influential advisers, and Baker recruited chemists, pharmacologists, microbiologists, and marine biologists. Despite the conjecture, raised in some quarters, that RRIMP was established to mute the Australian government criticism of the pricing of Roche's most famous p..