Latest / Healthcare Mysteries Uncovered
How a Failed Testosterone Pill Secretly Reinvented Women's Hormones
How a Failed Testosterone Pill Secretly Reinvented Women's Hormones
A single laboratory mistake in 1938 turned a quest to make oral testosterone into the world's first pill that could replace a hormone once deliverable only by needle - and that pill carried an unexpected androgenic shadow. How did a modification at one carbon atom create an oral progestogen that later caused acne, hirsutism, and fetal masculinization at high doses?
In this episode, we tell the story of four chemists at Schering AG, the chemical steps they took, the markets that adopted the drug, and the clinical consequences…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.