Editing Erythromycin (section)

== History ==

In 1952 [[Abelardo Aguilar|Abelardo B. Aguilar]], a Filipino scientist, sent some soil samples to his employer at [[Eli Lilly and Company|Eli Lilly]].<ref name="D&R">{{cite news | vauthors = Tan ML |title=Drugs and rights |url=https://opinion.inquirer.net/123626/drugs-and-rights |access-date=4 November 2021 |newspaper=[[Philippine Daily Inquirer]] |date=30 August 2019 |language=en |archive-date=28 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210228125609/https://opinion.inquirer.net/123626/drugs-and-rights |url-status=live }}</ref> Aguilar managed to isolate erythromycin from the metabolic products of a strain of ''Streptomyces erythreus'' (designation changed to ''[[Saccharopolyspora erythraea]]'') found in the samples. Aguilar received no further credit or compensation for his discovery.<ref name="D&R"/>

The scientist was allegedly promised a trip to the company's manufacturing plant in Indianapolis, but it was never fulfilled. In a letter to the company's president, Aguilar wrote: “A leave of absence is all I ask as I do not wish to sever my connection with a great company which has given me wonderful breaks in life.” The request was not granted.<ref name=the-news-today />

Aguilar reached out to Eli Lilly again in 1993, requesting royalties from sales of the drug over the years, intending to use them to put up a foundation for poor and sickly Filipinos. This request was also denied. He died in September of the same year.<ref name=the-news-today>{{cite web | vauthors = Hibionada FF | title = Remembering the battle of Dr. Abelardo Aguilar: Cure for millions, deprived of millions. | work = The News Today | access-date = 22 September 2015 | url = https://www.thenewstoday.info/2005/05/03/iloilonews3.htm | archive-date = 18 September 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210918004325/https://www.thenewstoday.info/2005/05/03/iloilonews3.htm | url-status = live }}</ref>

Lilly filed for patent protection on the compound which was granted in 1953.<ref>{{cite patent | country = US | number = 2653899 | title = Erythromycin, its salts, and method of preparation | inventor = Bunch RL, Mcguire JM | assign1 = Eli Lilly and Company | pubdate = 29 September 1953 | postscript = . }}</ref> The product was launched commercially in 1952 under the brand name Ilosone (after the [[Philippines|Philippine]] region of [[Iloilo Province|Iloilo]] where it was originally collected). Erythromycin was formerly also called Ilotycin.

The antibiotic [[clarithromycin]] was invented by scientists at the Japanese drug company [[Taisho Pharmaceutical]] in the 1970s as a result of their efforts to overcome the acid instability of erythromycin.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Greenwood D |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i4_FZHmzjzwC&pg=PA239 |title=Antimicrobial drugs: chronicle of a twentieth century medical triumph |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford university press |isbn=978-0-19-953484-5 |location=New York |pages=239}}</ref>