Laboratorios Syntex SA (later Syntex Laboratories, Inc.) was a pharmaceutical company formed in Mexico City in January 1944 by Russell Marker, Emeric Somlo, and Federico Lehmann to manufacture therapeutic steroids from the Mexican yams called cabeza de negro (Dioscorea mexicana) and Barbasco (Dioscorea composita).
[3] Luis E. Miramontes, George Rosenkranz and Carl Djerassi's successful synthesis of norethisterone (also known as norethindrone) — which was later proven to be an effective pregnancy inhibitor — led to an infusion of capital into Syntex and the Mexican steroid pharmaceutical industry.
In 1959, Syntex moved its operating headquarters to Palo Alto, California, United States, and evolved into a transnational corporation.
[8] Syntex submitted its compound to a laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, for biological evaluation, and found it was the most active, orally-effective progestational hormone of its time.
Syntex's submission of a fraudulent toxicology analysis of naproxen largely led to the Food and Drug Administration's uncovering of extensive scientific misconduct by Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories in 1976.