Gallimed Sciences, Inc.
A Fable
Example from the business world, that illustrates our vision for our invention.
In February, 1933, Ed Carlson, a farmer from Deer Park, Wisconsin, came into Karl Paul Link's laboratory with a milk-can full of blood that would not coagulate. In his truck, he had a some spoiled sweet clover hay and a dead heifer.
In 1941, Link and Harold Campbell reported the isolation of dicumarol, the first of the oral anticoagulants now widely used in surgery and the treatment of circulatory disorders. At the same time, Link was becoming convinced that the anticoagulants being isolated and synthesized in this laboratory might also be useful as rodenticides.
"From the beginning," he said, "I had an intuitive feeling that this might be a good thing. A pretty bad thing for rats, but a good thing for humans. But the idea didn't come overnight. It came into my head and the heads of everyone in the lab over a period of years."
Again, the accumulating facts spoke for themselves, and in 1948
Link came to WARF's director Ward Ross with the suggestion that the
foundation patent, as a rodenticide, the coumarin derivative he later
named Warfarin.
(from http://www.warf.org
)
Warfarin was patented as a rodenticide in 1948 and sold by Sterling Drug Co. under the name dCON. Three companies in Wisconsin - Bell Laboratories Inc. in Madison, Liphatech in Milwaukee and Hacco Inc. in Randolph - produce the great majority of the country's professional and consumer -market rodenticides. While sales figures in the rodenticide field are difficult to ascertain, Hacco was acquired by the Neogen Corporation, and lists 2005 sales figures from the rodenticide business as being$28 million.
As warfarin was originally thought to be too toxic a drug for human use, Link synthesized dicoumarol (essentially two linked molecules of warfarin) for potential use as in human medicine. However, in 1951, the attempted suicide of a navy recruit who had taken a large dose of rat poison led clinicians to discard dicumarol, in favor of warfarin. The first clinical study with warfarin was reported in 1955, and in the same year, President Eisenhower was treated with warfarin following a heart attack.
Coumadin (warfarin sodium ) is now the 11th most-prescribed medication in the United States, with annual sales of approximately $500 million.
Estimated costs of pest species
|
Category |
Losses/Damages |
Control costs |
Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Wild horses |
5 |
NE |
5 |
|
Feral pigs |
800 |
0.5 |
800.5 |
|
Mongooses |
50 |
NE |
50 |
|
Rats |
19,000 |
NE |
19,000 + |
|
Cats |
17,000 |
NE |
17,000 + |
|
Dogs |
620 |
NE |
620 |
NE
=
non-estimable
(from Pimental et al., 2004)