Two Women Invented the First Real Antifungal Drug — and Gave Away $13 Million in Royalties

US2797183 was granted on June 25, 1957, to Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen. The title is "Nystatin and Method of Producing It." Nystatin was the first antifungal antibiotic effective and safe enough to use in humans — a genuinely important drug that still appears on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines.

The discovery came at a particular moment in medical history. The antibiotic revolution of the 1940s — penicillin, streptomycin — had transformed the treatment of bacterial infection. But antibiotics only kill bacteria, and one of their side effects was to disrupt the body's natural microbial balance, allowing fungal infections to flourish unchecked. Suddenly fungal infections were a growing problem, and there was almost nothing to treat them with. The few antifungal compounds known were too toxic to give to people — they killed the fungus and the patient alike.

Discovery by mail

Brown and Hazen worked for the New York State Department of Health, but in different cities — Hazen, a microbiologist, in New York City, and Brown, a chemist, in Albany. They collaborated almost entirely by mail. Hazen would collect soil samples, test them for microorganisms that killed fungi, and when she found a promising one, mail the culture to Brown in Albany. Brown would isolate and purify the active chemical compound, then mail her results back. Samples and findings traveled back and forth between them through the United States Postal Service for years.

The breakthrough organism came from a soil sample Hazen collected from the pasture of a friend's dairy farm in Virginia. The bacterium living in that dirt produced a substance that killed fungi but, crucially, did not appear to harm animal cells. Brown purified it. They named it nystatin, after New York State — a small monument to the health department that employed them.

The money

Nystatin was licensed to a pharmaceutical company and became a commercial success, treating fungal infections in people and also finding uses as varied as protecting bananas from mold in shipment and, famously, being used to treat mold damage in valuable artwork, including works damaged in the 1966 Florence flood.

The royalties were substantial — around thirteen million dollars over the life of the patent. Brown and Hazen took none of it for themselves. They directed the entire sum, through a nonprofit research foundation, back into scientific research and the training of future scientists, particularly opportunities for women in science. They had made a genuinely valuable discovery, patented it properly, and then declined the fortune it generated, on the principle that the work mattered more than the payout.

Both women received the Chemical Pioneer Award and other honors late in their careers. Hazen died in 1975, Brown in 1980. The drug they discovered by shipping dirt through the mail is still, nearly seventy years later, one of the medicines the world is considered unable to do without.

See the original

The full text of US2797183 is on patents.us.