Wellcome Research Laboratories was a site in

Beckenham Beckenham () is a town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. Prior to 1965, it was part of Kent. It is situated north of Elmers End and Eden Park, east of Penge, south of Lower Sydenham and Bellingham, and west ...

, south-east London, that was a main research centre for pharmaceuticals. Until 1965, this laboratory site was situated in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

History

In 1894

Henry Wellcome Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (21 August 1853 – 25 July 1936) was an American and British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Mainville Burroughs, Jr., Silas Bur ...

set up a laboratory in central London to investigate a treatment for

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...

. In 1898 it moved to Brockwell Hall in

Herne Hill Herne Hill () is a district in South London, approximately four miles from Charing Cross and bordered by Brixton, Camberwell, Dulwich, and Tulse Hill. It sits to the north and east of Brockwell Park and straddles the boundary between the London ...

(now in

Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, which today also gives its name to the (much larger) London Borough of Lambeth. Lambeth itself was an ancient parish in the county of Surrey. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Charin ...

). In 1919 Henry Wellcome bought a 105-acre site in Beckenham, Kent, which cost £32,000. The site had belonged to the Langley family since 1350. Langley Court had been built in 1886 by James Bucknall, who lived in the house with his family until 1914. It was named the Wellcome Research Laboratories in 1946 after the Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories moved to the site. The

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

had been set up in 1936, after the death in that year of Sir Henry Wellcome. They have developed the antibiotic

trimethoprim Trimethoprim (TMP) is an antibiotic used mainly in the treatment of bladder infections. Other uses include for middle ear infections and travelers' diarrhea. With sulfamethoxazole or dapsone it may be used for ''Pneumocystis'' pneumonia ...

Awards

In April 1990, the site won the Queen's Award for Export and Technological Achievement for their Retrovir drug (

Zidovudine Zidovudine (ZDV), also known as azidothymidine (AZT), was the first antiretroviral medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. It is generally recommended for use in combination with other antiretrovirals. It may be used to prevent mothe ...

), an

antiretroviral medication The management of HIV/AIDS normally includes the use of multiple antiretroviral drugs as a strategy to control HIV infection. There are several classes of antiretroviral agents that act on different stages of the HIV life-cycle. The use of mul ...

; it had been launched in 1987 as AZT, and was the world's first antiretroviral medication.London Gazette
/ref> This medication caused the Wellcome share price to increase in 1989 by five times.

Closure

It closed in 1995 after Wellcome had been taken over by Glaxo in March 1995 to form Glaxo Wellcome. In December 2000, Glaxo Wellcome became

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

, when it merged with SmithKline Beecham.

Directors

* Sir

Salvador Moncada Sir Salvador Enrique Moncada Seidner (born 3 December 1944) is a Honduran-British pharmacologist and professor. He is currently Research Domain Director for Cancer at the University of Manchester. In the past, he was the Research Director of ...

FRS 1986-95

Alumni

Adrien Albert Adrien Albert (19 November 1907 – 29 December 1989) was a leading authority in the development of medicinal chemistry in Australia. Albert also authored many important books on chemistry, including one on selective toxicity. His father, Ja ...

June Almeida June Dalziel Almeida (5 October 1930 – 1 December 2007) was a Scottish virologist, a pioneer in virus imaging and identification. Her skills in electron microscopy earned her an international reputation. In 1964, Almeida was recruited by St ...

* Sir James Black FRS, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Medicine *

Victor Darley-Usmar Victor Darley-Usmar (born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England in 1956) is a free-radical biologist and biochemist, the UAB Endowed Professor in Mitochondrial Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Darley-Usmar also cont ...

* Trevor M Jones *

Charles Kellaway Charles Halliley Kellaway, (16 January 1889 – 13 December 1952) was an Australian medical researcher and science administrator. Biography Early years and education Charles Kellaway was born at the parsonage attached to St James's Old Cathe ...

FRS * Gilberto de Nucci * Alan R. Saltiel * Anne Simmonds * Sir

Patrick Vallance Patrick John Thompson Vallance, Baron Vallance of Balham (born 17 March 1960), is a British physician, scientist, life peer, and clinical pharmacologist who has served as Minister of State for Science in the Department for Science, Innovatio ...

FRS, Chief Scientific Adviser to UK Government since 2018 * Sir

John Vane Sir John Robert Vane (29 March 1927 – 19 November 2004) was a British pharmacologist who was instrumental in the understanding of how aspirin produces pain-relief and anti-inflammatory effects and his work led to new treatments for heart ...

FRS, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Medicine * John L. Wallace

References

External links

Wellcome Research history
{{authority control 1894 establishments in England 1995 disestablishments in England Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Bromley Laboratories in the United Kingdom Medical research institutes in the United Kingdom Pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom Pharmaceutical research institutes Research institutes in London Wellcome Trust Pharmaceutical companies established in 1894 British companies established in 1894 British companies disestablished in 1995