Karl Pfizer
Karl Pfizer (also: Charles Pfizer ) (born March 22, 1824 in Ludwigsburg , † October 19, 1906 in Newport (Rhode Island) ) was a German chemist . Karl was the fifth child of a master confectioner . The apprentice pharmacist emigrated to the USA as a Forty-Eighter and founded the pharmaceutical company Pfizer in Williamsburg , Brooklyn in 1849 with his cousin Charles F. Erhart .
Life
Karl Pfizer and Charles Erhart borrowed $ 2,500 from Pfizer's father and bought a small building on Bartlett Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn . There they produced the chemical santonin against parasitic worms. They gradually expanded their product range, for example to include iodized salts . In 1857 the building had become too small and a new office was opened in downtown Manhattan . Eleven years later, the office moved to 81 Maiden Lane near Wall Street . One of the city's first telephones was installed here in 1878 .
The company produced borax and boric acid until 1860 and was the first major producer of these chemicals in the United States. During the civil war , a protective tariff against imported tartar enabled the local production of tartar cremor tartari to begin. Tartaric acid was used as a medicine on the battlefields to treat the wounds and illnesses of Union soldiers .
Pfizer was often in Europe to maintain contact with its raw material suppliers. He got to know his wife Anna Hausch and married her in Ludwigsburg in 1859. They had five children, two of whom (Charles Jr. and Emile) ran the company.
The Pfizer company expanded after the Second World War with the main production of synthetic citric acid and started producing penicillin and other antibiotics . In 2009 it had sales of $ 50.1 billion worldwide.
The company achieved great fame through the invention of the active ingredient Sildenafil , the drug launched on the market under the name Viagra for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (erectile dysfunction) in men.
literature
- Michael Rehs: Roots in foreign soil: On the history of the south-west German emigration to America DRW-Verlag, 1984, ISBN 3-87181-231-5 .
Web links
- Charles Pfizer on the company website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pfizer: Annual Review 2009 , pdf (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pfizer, Karl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pfizer, Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 22, 1824 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ludwigsburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 19, 1906 |
| Place of death | Rhode Island |