Bernhard Joos (18 December 1899

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a town with historic roots, a municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimate ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

– 8 June 1990

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), was the son of Dr. Bernhard Joos and Olga Sturzenegger. He attained a PhD in chemistry at the

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

in 1925, and was an assistant of

Paul Karrer Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, who won the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

in Chemistry in 1937. After a stay in the US, Joos returned to Switzerland in 1932 and started his own laboratory, where he discovered the analgesic properties of phenazopyridine (later branded as Pyridazil). In 1936 he created the pharmaceutical company

Cilag Cilag AG is a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Cilag is a subsidiary of American pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. The company's global marketing activities are operated by Janssen-Cilag, a merger with another Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, Janss ...

(Chemical Industrial Laboratory AG). Within its first few years the new company launched six new pharmaceutical preparations. Joos left the company in 1949, and in 1959 Cilag was acquired by the US company

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

. An Australian legal claim filed by him, ''Bernhard Joos vs. Commissioner of Patents'', resulted in a change in British patent law, making medical and cosmetic procedures on the human body patentable.''New Scientist,'' November 30, 1972
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References

Businesspeople in the pharmaceutical industry Swiss pharmacologists 1899 births 1990 deaths {{Switzerland-scientist-stub