Medicines in Brazil: Between Natural and Synthetic (1920 to 2000)

• Autor(a) principal: Fernandes, Tania Tania
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Fitos
• Texto Completo: https://revistafitos.far.fiocruz.br/index.php/revista-fitos/article/view/145
• topic: History; Brazil; pharmaceutical industry; medicinal plants; health; História; Brasil; indústria farmacêutica; plantas medicinais; saúde

The history of drug production has a strong turnaround in the 1940s with the introduction into the world market of synthetic drugs and installation and expansion in several countries, multinational character companies in accordance with the economic model, then implemented, placing them among the most profitable on a global scale. In Brazil, the expansion of national pharmaceutical companies, observed since 1920, suffered in this context a significant decrease which led chemical and pharmaceutical industry to a deep break up, given the political and economic options of the country for technology transfer and not investment in the autonomy of the sector. The growth of multinational companies consolidated, too, the synthesis processes for the chemical pharmaceutical products, in place of natural origin. More recently, obtaining medicines through biotechnological methods, has gained ground, providing further changes in production structure and the global pharmaceutical market. This study aims to examine these processes of change relating industry and scientific knowledge of natural and synthetic products in different contexts.