Paul Adriaan Jan, Baron Janssen (12 September 1926 – 11 November 2003) was a Belgian physician. He was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, a pharmaceutical company with over 20,000 employeesPaul Lewi, Obituary of Dr Paul Janssen (1926–2003), Drug Discovery Today, Volume 9, Issue 10, 15 May 2004, Pages 432–433 which became a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Early life and education

Janssen was born on 12 September 1926, in

Turnhout Turnhout () is a Belgium, Belgian Municipalities in Belgium, municipality and city located in the Flemish Region, Flemish Provinces of Belgium, province of Antwerp (province), Antwerp. The municipality comprises only the city of Turnhout proper. ...

, to Constant Janssen and Margriet Fleerackers. He attended secondary school at the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

St Jozef college in

, Belgium after which he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a physician. During World War II Janssen studied physics, biology and chemistry at the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (FUNDP) in

Namur Namur (; ; ) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is the capital both of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namur stands at the confl ...

. He then studied medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven and

Ghent University Ghent University (, abbreviated as UGent) is a Public university, public research university located in Ghent, in the East Flanders province of Belgium. Located in Flanders, Ghent University is the second largest Belgian university, consisting o ...

. In 1951, Janssen received his

medical degree A medical degree is a professional degree admitted to those who have passed coursework in the fields of medicine and/or surgery from an accredited medical school. Obtaining a degree in medicine allows for the recipient to continue on into special ...

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' from Ghent University. He graduated with a postdoctoral degree in pharmacology at the same university in 1956, and studied at the Institute of Pharmacology of the University of Cologne. On 16 April 1957, he married Dora Arts.

Career

During his military service and until 1952, he worked at the Institute of Pharmacology of the University of Cologne. After he returned to Belgium, he worked part time at the University of Ghent Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, headed by Corneille Heymans, who had won the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

for medicine in 1938. With a loan of fifty thousand Belgian francs received from his father, Janssen founded his own research laboratory in 1953. That same year, he discovered ambucetamide, an antispasmodic found to be particularly effective for the relief of menstrual pain. In 1956, Janssen received his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in pharmacology with '' pro venia legendi'' ("permission to lecture") designation for his thesis on ''Compounds of the R 79 type''. He left the university and established what would become Janssen Pharmaceutica. On 11 February 1958, he developed haloperidol, a major breakthrough in the treatment of

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

. Working with his team, he developed the

fentanyl Fentanyl is a highly potent synthetic piperidine opioid primarily used as an analgesic (pain medication). It is 30 to 50 times more Potency (pharmacology), potent than heroin and 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Its primary Medici ...

family of drugs and a number of anesthetic agents, including droperidol and

etomidate Etomidate (United States Adopted Name, USAN, International Nonproprietary Name, INN, British Approved Name, BAN; marketed as Amidate) is a short-acting intravenous anaesthetic agent used for the induction of general anaesthesia and sedation for ...

. One of the anti-

diarrhea Diarrhea (American English), also spelled diarrhoea or diarrhœa (British English), is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements in a day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration d ...

l drugs he developed, diphenoxylate ( Lomotil), was used in the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

. In 1959, Janssen synthesized the potent opioid

based on SAR studies of meperidine. In the 1970s, he would improve upon the potency of fentanyl with the synthesis of Carfentanil. In 1985, Janssen Pharmaceutical became the first Western pharmaceutical company to establish a factory in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. In 1995, together with Paul Lewi, he founded the Center for Molecular Design, where he and his team used a

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

to search candidate molecules for potential

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

treatments. Altogether Janssen and his cadre of scientists discovered more than eighty new medications, four of which are on the WHO list of essential medicines. In 1991, he was elevated to the Belgian nobility by King Baudouin receiving the title of Baron.

Death

Janssen died in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, on 11 November 2003, aged 77, while attending the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, of which he had been a member since 1990.

Popularity polls

*In 2005, he finished as runner up, after Father Damien, in the poll for The Greatest Belgian organized by the regional Flemish television. * On Wednesday 22 October 2008, Paul Janssen was awarded the title of ''Most Important Belgian Scientist'', an initiative of the Eos magazine.

References

External links

Dr Paul Janssen

Paul Janssen
(Obituary)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Janssen, Paul 1926 births 2003 deaths Belgian barons Flemish businesspeople Belgian pharmacologists Belgian Roman Catholics Flemish physicians Catholic University of Leuven (1834–1968) alumni Ghent University alumni Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Janssen Pharmaceutica people People from Turnhout Australia Prize recipients Université de Namur alumni 20th-century Belgian inventors Pharmaceutical company founders