Alejandro Zaffaroni
| Alejandro Zaffaroni | |
|---|---|
|
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| Born |
February 27, 1923 Montevideo, Uruguay |
| Died | March 1, 2014 (aged 91) Atherton, California, United States |
| Nationality | Uruguayan |
| Alma mater |
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| Thesis | The Application of Paper Partition Chromatography to Steroid Analysis (1950) |
| Spouse | Lida Zaffaroni |
Alejandro Zaffaroni (February 27, 1923 – March 1, 2014) was a serial entrepreneur who was responsible for founding several biotechnology companies in Silicon Valley. Products that he was involved in developing include the birth control pill, the nicotine patch, corticosteroids, and the DNA microarray.
Born in 1923 in Montevideo, Uruguay, Zaffaroni received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of the Republic in 1945, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Rochester in 1949.
Zaffaroni joined Syntex, then a small chemical company in Mexico, as a biochemist in 1951. He participated in turning Syntex into a major multinational pharmaceutical company, moving it to Palo Alto, California. He was appointed president of the U.S. subsidiary in 1962.
In 1968, he founded ALZA, a portmanteau of his name, to develop medical treatments through controlled drug delivery. He modeled new delivery systems after the processes discovered in endocrinology – where glands deliver very small amounts of hormones but have a tremendous effect –.
ALZA's first controlled drug delivery product was used to treat glaucoma. Other products that incorporated Zaffaroni's drug delivery technologies include Glucotrol, for non insulin-dependent diabetes; Duragesic, for management of severe chronic pain; NicoDerm CQ, for smoking cessation; and Transderm-Scop, to prevent nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness.
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