Redoxon Double Action Vitamin C standard tablets

Redoxon is the brand name of the first artificially synthesized

ascorbic acid Ascorbic acid is an organic compound with formula , originally called hexuronic acid. It is a white solid, but impure samples can appear yellowish. It dissolves freely in water to give mildly acidic solutions. It is a mild reducing agent. Asco ...

(

vitamin C Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits, berries and vegetables. It is also a generic prescription medication and in some countries is sold as a non-prescription di ...

). Redoxon was first marketed to the general public by

Roche F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche (), is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational corporation, multinational holding healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, ...

in 1934, making it the first mass-manufactured synthetic vitamin in history. The brand is now owned by German pharmaceutical company

Bayer Bayer AG (English: , commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer' ...

and is sold in many countries.

History

The product was developed by a team headed by chemist

Tadeusz Reichstein Tadeusz Reichstein (20 July 1897 – 1 August 1996), also known as Tadeus Reichstein, was a Polish-Swiss chemist and a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (1950), which was awarded for his work on the isolation of cortisone. Early li ...

, who discovered a method of synthesizing 30-40 grams of vitamin C from 100 grams of

glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae d ...

. This used an intermediate step of creating

sorbose Sorbose is a ketose belonging to the group of sugars known as monosaccharides. It has a sweetness that is equivalent to sucrose (table sugar). The commercial production of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) often begins with sorbose. L-Sorbose is the conf ...

using a bacterial fermentation method discovered by a French researcher,

Gabriel Bertrand Gabriel Bertrand (born 17 May 1867 in Paris, died 20 June 1962 in Paris) was a French pharmacologist, biochemist and bacteriologist. Bertrand introduced into biochemistry both the term “oxidase” and the concept of trace elements. The laccase ...

. In this method, fruit flies were attracted to a mixture of wine, vinegar, yeast bouillon, and

sorbitol Sorbitol (), less commonly known as glucitol (), is a sugar alcohol with a sweet taste which the human body metabolizes slowly. It can be obtained by reduction of glucose, which changes the converted aldehyde group (−CHO) to a primary alco ...

, a substance easily chemically prepared from glucose. Flies that fed upon sorbitol as a major food substrate excreted bacteria that were able to synthesize sorbose from sorbitol. The bacteria species was isolated, cultured and used in a fermentation process to make sorbose. From sorbose, chemical reactions were used to complete the synthesis of ascorbic acid. Despite concern about starting with a wild strain of bacteria for fermentation production of sorbose, the process was superior in cost and yield to a rival method by

Albert Szent-Györgyi Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi de Rapoltu Mare, Nagyrápolt (; September 16, 1893 – October 22, 1986) was a Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937. He is credited with first isolating vitamin C and disc ...

that isolated vitamin C from

capsicum ''Capsicum'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the Solanum, nightshade family Solanaceae, native to the Americas, cultivated worldwide for their edible fruit, which are generally known as "peppers" or "capsicum". Chili peppers grow on five s ...

(peppers). After the sale of the

Reichstein process The Reichstein process in chemistry is a combined chemical and microbial method for the production of ascorbic acid from D-glucose in five steps. This process was devised by Nobel Prize winner Tadeusz Reichstein and his colleagues in 1933 while wo ...

patent to Hoffmann-La Roche, this process became the basis of the corporation's large-scale production of vitamin C. The present-day Redoxon tablets are compounded from ascorbic acid and

sodium bicarbonate Sodium bicarbonate ( IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda (or simply “bicarb” especially in the UK) is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt composed of a sodium cat ...

. When these are added to water, they react to produce

sodium ascorbate Sodium ascorbate is one of a number of mineral salts of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). The molecular formula of this chemical compound is C6H7NaO6. As the sodium salt of ascorbic acid, it is known as a mineral ascorbate. It has not been demonstrat ...

, water and

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

, thus producing an

effervescence Effervescence is the escape of gas from an aqueous solution and the foaming or fizzing that results from that release. The word effervescence is derived from the Latin verb ''fervere'' (to boil), preceded by the adverb ''ex''. It has the same l ...

. Some versions of Redoxon contain additional nutrients.

References

Drugs developed by Bayer Vitamins Effervescent dietary supplements {{treatment-stub