Penicillin mass production patentIn 1948, Andrew J. Moyer was granted U.S. patent No. 2,442,141 for a “Method for Production of Penicillin.”He specified that his invention for the mass production of penicillin could be used by or for the U.S. Government for its purposes without royalty payments to him. A commercial plant using his process had been opened in 1944 in Brooklyn, New York, which produced enough doses of this antibiotic in time to save the lives of a great many of the war-wounded not only for the climax of as WW II, but also in the Korean War. His method comprised a large-scale fermentation, incubating penicillin-producing mold in an aqueous nutrient medium of corn-steeping liquor, glucose and sodium nitrate. This process is still in use today for the commercial fermentation production of penicillin and various other antibiotics.« |
