The man whose initiative gave the world ibuprofen has been honoured with the opening of a new research facility in his name. The Stewart Adams Building is the latest phase of Nottingham, UK's BioCity, a project to nurture bioscience businesses that is based in the original buildings where Adams led the research team that developed ibuprofen.
Stewart Adams left grammar school at sixteen to work in a Boots pharmacy and he went on to read pharmacy at University College, Nottingham, before returning to Boots on the industrial side. In the company's research department, he developed an assay for heparin that remained the pharmacopoeial standard for many years.
After presenting a report to Boots that proposed what turned out to be a 15-year research programme, Adams developed a laboratory model for screening for anti-inflammatory activity and decided to look at aspirin analogues - never previously tested for anti-inflammatory activity.
Joined by chemist John Nicholson, their strategy was to strive for the right balance of efficacy and low toxicity. Many aspirin analogues were synthesised but none were superior to aspirin. This failure did provide some chemical leads and, after many more disappointments, led to the discovery and development of the propionics. Ibuprofen emerged as the preferred candidate and its first clinical trial demonstrated efficacy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis at doses of only 100-200 mg three times daily.
'It took a long time,' Adams said recently. .We were always very concerned about safety and reluctant to push the dose too far, but when we began to increase the dose it proved to be much more effective but still well tolerated. It still has the advantage of tolerability over other NSAIDs at doses up to 1600 mg/day.'