Stewart Adams (chemist)

Stewart Sanders Adams OBE (16 April 1923 – 30 January 2019) was an English pharmacist, and bioengineer who was part of a team from Boots which developed the painkiller ibuprofen in 1961.

[8] At the time, the main medicine for the condition were corticosteroids and high doses of aspirin, which had such side effects as gastrointestinal problems and allergic reactions.

[9][10] At the Boots Pure Drug Company in 1953, Adams began work on other chemical substances that could have a pain-killing effect, centred on rheumatoid arthritis.

In August 1958 on Rutland Road in West Bridgford,[11] the team, with Manchester Grammar School-educated organic chemist John Nicholson (1925–83),[12][13] looked at on phenoxy acids.

He had read in a German journal about ultra-violet-induced erythema on the skin of shaved guinea pigs discovered by Parke-Davis, so he could test anti-inflammatory treatments; the UV-light came from a Kromayer Lamp.

The first clinical trials were by Dr. Tom Chalmers at the Rheumatic Diseases Unit at the Northern General Hospital, Edinburgh (which closed around 1990) in 1966.

In April 1966, Ibufenac (iso-butyl-phenyl-acetic-acid, known as Dytransin) went onto the UK market, but was withdrawn in January 1968 due to causing jaundice, from its toxicity in the liver.

[15] 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.

[18] In November 2013 work on ibuprofen was recognised by the erection of a Royal Society of Chemistry blue plaque at Boots' Beeston Factory site in Nottingham, which reads:[19] In recognition of the work during the 1980s by The Boots Company PLC on the development of ibuprofen which resulted in its move from prescription only status to over the counter sale, therefore expanding its use to millions of people worldwideand another at BioCity Nottingham, the site of the original laboratory, which reads:[19] In recognition of the pioneering research work, here on Pennyfood Street, by Dr Stewart Adams and Dr John Nicholson in the Research Department of Boots which led to the discovery of ibuprofen used by millions worldwide for the relief of pain.A new pedestrian and cycle bridge connecting the Nottingham Science Park to the Boots head office campus, over the Midland Main Line, was named after Adams, as part of the electrification works.