[1][2] Tanabe graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1947 with a degree in chemistry; his thesis was "Studies in the hydroaromatic series".
[3] Tanabe would go on to study under professor William G. Dauben at the University of California, Berkeley.
[1][6] A compound discovered in a previous contract from NIH showed potential - it acted like "anti-estrogen" in the breasts and uterus but like normal estrogen elsewhere in the body, and were thus more "tissue-selective".
[2] A contract was proposed to Taiho Pharmaceutical in July 1996, and within six years and slightly under $3 million (an unusually short amount of time) two new drugs were discovered and tested on people (particularly people for which tamoxifen has failed): SR16234 and SR16287.
[2] The first of those, SR16234, also inhibited the growth of blood vessels (angiogenesis) and accelerated the death of cancer cells (apoptosis) and thus was particularly well suited to be an anti-cancer drug.