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Private company

Syntex

Mexican pharmaceutical company

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). The demand for barbasco by Syntex initiated the Mexican barbasco trade. As the American Chemistry Society later explained: “In early 1944, the new Mexican company was chartered and named Syntex, S.A. (‘Synthesis and Mexico’).2 It was founded by Russell Earl Marker.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1944Founded1

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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). The demand for barbasco by Syntex initiated the Mexican barbasco trade.2

The story

Founded by Russell Earl Marker in 1944.1

Leadership

Who has led Syntex, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

Products and brands

Russell Marker co-founded the company in 1944. In May 1945, realizing that he was being left out of the company's profits, he left the company. When Marker took his notebooks with him, production was severely hampered because he had done the synthesis himself and had coded the reagent bottles.

George Rosenkranz had studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and was conducting pharmaceutical research in Cuba. He joined Syntex in 1945 to replace Marker. He hired Djerassi in 1949.

Carl Djerassi went to work at Syntex in 1949 as the associate director of chemical research. He remained there through 1951, leaving to join the faculty of the Chemistry Department at Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) starting in 1952. He later returned to the company in 1957, was involved in the company's move to Palo Alto (where he had become a professor of chemistry at Stanford in 1960), and stayed around this time until 1972.

Alejandro Zaffaroni developed procedures for identifying and separating steroids using paper chromatography while studying at the University of Rochester, and joined Syntex as a research biochemist in 1951. He became vice-president in 1956, and was appointed president of Syntex's U.S. subsidiary in Palo Alto, California in 1962.

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Luis E. Miramontes moved from UNAM to Syntex in 1950 as a researcher under Djerassi. Under the direction of Djerassi and Rosenkranz, he performed the last step of the first synthesis of an orally highly active progestin on 15 October 1951. The semi-synthetic steroid, norethisterone (19-Nor-17-alpha-ethynyltestosterone), was the first orally highly active progestin, which led to the development of the first oral contraceptive pills.

Albert Bowers joined Syntex, in 1956 as research group leader; went on to publish more than 90 scientific papers on steroid research and originated more than 120 U.S. patents. Bowers became president of Syntex in 1976, was chief executive officer from 1980 to 1989 and had served as chairman of the board, 1981-1990.

Jerzy Rzedowski worked as an explorer botanist. He later became the most prominent plant scientist in Mexico.

Ralph Dorfman Joined the company as a consultant in 1960, eventually serving as President of Syntex Research from 1967–1973

From Wikipedia’s article on Syntex, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 1944Founded Founded1

Sources

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