The Discovery of Captopril

Over the past few years, and particularly recently, there has been a goodly amount of discussion in the press about the discovery and development of highly successful drugs by the pharmaceutical industry, in which extensive data generated by government-sponsored research is claimed to have played a significant role in the industry’s success. Detailed analysis of these claims (1) has concluded that the concept of major monetary input into such drugs by the government is not justified. Indeed, the Tufts group finds that undue weight has been given to government contributions by parties making such analyses because their approach is to compare the number of publications in a certain field emanating from academia and NIH with publications from the drug companies. The difference in favor of the NIH should not be surprising since we know that academia and NIH “live” by publishing while the industry holds back publication until its intellectual property is adequately protected by patenting. Since we were both closely affiliated with the discovery and development of captopril, one of the compounds on the above-mentioned list of drugs (1) in which government funding is claimed to have played a major role, we believe that the history of the development of this important drug should become a matter of public record, since we know of no government money involved therewith. We also challenge the people who state that government money was involved, to justify their claims with factual data other than publications.