A glimpse of the early history of the cephalosporins

The cephalosporins, like the penicillins, came from research that was partly academic but that led to results which found application in medicine. A number of events followed the isolation of a Cephalosporium in Sardinia in 1945. Research at Oxford resulted in the discovery of cephalosporin C in 1953, in the elucidation of its structure in 1959, and in the determination of many of its characteristic properties. Further work in the United States opened the way to large-scale production of a series of semisynthetic cephalosporins. A change in the attitude of the Government toward the application of academic research in the United Kingdom and the establishment of a National Research Development Corporation were responsible for certain differences between the commercial development of the cephalosporins and that of penicillin.