Responses by Australian pharmacologists to respiratory depression caused by opiates and barbiturates

Abstract

In the middle of the last century, pharmacologists at the University of Melbourne led by Professor Frank Shaw inadvertently discovered that an amino-acridine they were using in other experiments reversed the respiratory depressive effects of morphine. They widened their search for such activity, experimenting with a range of heterocyclic substances and achieving success with a thiazole derivative, provided to them by the Professor of Organic Chemistry at the university, that countered the effects of morphine. Working with chemists and pharmacologists at a company with which Shaw had close links, Nicholas Pty Ltd, they discovered a glutarimide that offered the same benefit in cases of barbiturate intoxication. While this collaboration between pharmacologists and chemists, in industry and university, promised much, neither of these drugs survived into modern medical practice. The reasons for this include the development of better drugs or more appropriate patient care, Shaw’s withdrawal from the work because of illness, and decisions in the company that might have been influenced by increasingly stringent requirements for the registration of new drugs. Nonetheless this was important research that drew on the depth of expertise in pharmacology and chemistry among university researchers and a major Australian company with whom they collaborated and exchanged personnel.