by Staff writer
The chemist who invented the anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofen has died at age of 95.
Dr Stewart Adams discovered the new generation painkiller by testing it on himself to cure his own hangover ahead of an important speech.
Ibuprofen is now one of the world’s best-selling anti-inflammatory painkillers.
Dr Adams, a father-of-two and grandfather-of-six who lived in Redhill, Nottinghamshire, said he used it ahead of an important speech in the early 1960s.
He told the BBC: “I was first up to speak and I had a bit of a headache after a night out with friends. So I took a 600mg dose, just to be sure, and I found it was very effective.”
Seeing the drug worked, it was immediately sent off for 10 years of clinic trials.
Formerly called Brufren, the new painkiller entered the British market in 1964 as a prescription only medication and by 1983 it was available over the counter.
It made its entry into the American market in 1974.
Dr Stewart Adams was formerly a chemist apprentice in Cambridgeshire but later went on to study pharmacy at the University of Nottingham and started working at Boots Pure Drug Company in 1952.
He also earned his doctorate in pharmacology while still working at the company in the early 1950s.
Dr Stewart Adams, who was awarded an OBE in 1987, died at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham on Wednesday.
He has been praised for his “amazing achievement with the invention of ibubrofen” and was also described as “a genuinely nice guy”.
God bless his soul