Oral Contraceptive

Carl Djerassi and colleagues, USA, patents from 1951-56. The steroid synthesis that restructured society.

Overview

Djerassi's Mexico City Syntex team synthesized norethisterone from yams in 1951, patents following through 1956 as Searle and Pincus developed Enovid, approved 1960. Gregory Pincus and John Rock ran the clinical trials; Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick funded them. The pill separated reproduction from sex, transforming women's education and workforce participation. Djerassi was called the father of the pill and spent royalties on art. The 1960 approval is social history filed as chemistry.