R.I.P. Jerome Horwitz, Medicinal Chemist

Multiple news outlets (NYT, SciAm, Karmanos) now report the passing of Jerome Horwitz, 93, a career medicinal chemist behind AIDS drugs such as AZT (1964), stavudine (1966), and dideoxycytidine (1967). Most obituaries focus on two facets from his life:

1. His invention of AZT, a drug so synonymous with AIDS treatment that it's been mentioned in raps, novels, and Broadway shows.
2. His perceived failure to patent his antiviral molecules, thus "costing" him and Wayne State University millions in revenue realized instead by Burroughs Wellcome (later GSK). 

First report of AZT, J. Org. Chem. 1964, p. 2076*

I want to take a slightly different tack on Horwitz's career. For my money, he met all the criteria for a successful career in organic chemistry. He published >100 articles and book chapters; not a one-trick nucleoside pony, Horwitz's work covered sterols, acridines, tetrazoyl ylides, epoxide rearrangements, and analogue development of anticancer drug XK469. He had a fifty-year career as a professor at two universities. His work led to (at least) three approved drugs.

He even has a statue installed at Detroit Medical Center.

Even more interesting, he accomplished nearly everything in his career while staying in one place: Michigan. He jumped outside (briefly) to Illinois for a postdoc at Northwestern, but all other schooling and professional work came from in and around Detroit. It's amazing to me, given how much I and others have moved around for a career in science, that his tenure in one metro area lasted for a lifetime.

*Side note: When I look up old papers, I enjoy seeing who else I recognize among the authors in the same issue. 1964 must have been quite heady - in the same issue with AZT, we have papers by Nakanishi, H.C. Brown, Bill Dauben, Alfred Blomquist, and John Baldwin.

What Do You Call Yourselves?

In the "hot-potato" game of Pharma jobs, it's not uncommon to work with a whole new cast of people every 5 years or so. I recall one such summer, where I watched the director and two lead chemists change around in just 3 months!

"Hi, I'm a GSKer."
"Really? I'm Ex-BMS!"

As you mix and match with refugees from layoffs, mergers, or plant closures, you encounter chemists from many different backgrounds. Perhaps they came from a rigid corporate hierarchy, or perhaps they were "pseudo-academics." Maybe they had legions of secretaries and associates, or maybe they were "armies of one" at a small start-up. But one thing everyone has?


A cute euphemism for where they used to work.


The Old "Ex-" (Most common): Ex-Pfizer, Ex-Merck, Ex-Lilly, Ex-BMS.


"-Ers": DuPonters, Merckers, GSKers, Genentechers*


"-Ites": Amgenites, Pfizerites


Engineers: Dow.


Geography Quiz: Sometimes, chemists will tell you they're from Nutley, Wilmington, or La Jolla, and expect you to intuit their former employers.


"Initials Only" Club: J&J, BASF, B-I, AZ.


Readers, I must be missing several. Have you heard any good ones?


Update, 3/8, 2:35AM - Chemjobber suggests "Pfizer alumni," and a Twitter respondent says the preferred internal term is "colleague."

An anonymous commenter suggests "BioGoners" for Ex-Biogen employees.


*(Yes, I checked all of these out on Google, and all have >150 hits, except "Genentechers" (76), which I usually hear via FiercePharma)