Paul Janssen

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Paul Janssen (Turnhout, Belgium, 12 September 1926 - Rome, Italy, 11 November 2003) was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, a pharmaceutical company with over 20,000 employees. He achieved a postdoctorate in Pharmacology and is one of Belgium's most loved figures, even posthumously.

Paul Janssen was the son of Constant Janssen, a physician and Margriet Fleeracker. He attended secondary school at the St-Josef College in Turnhout, after which he decided to follow in his father's footsteps. During the second world war, Paul Janssen studied physics, biology, and chemistry at the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (FUNDP) in Namur. He then studied medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven and the University of Ghent. In 1951 Paul Janssen graduated "magna cum laude" in medicine from the University of Ghent.

During his military service, he could also work at the University of Cologne in Germany at the Institute of Pharmacology of Prof. Dr. J. Schuller, where he worked until 1952. After he returned to Belgium he worked part-time at the Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, at the University of Ghent, of Professor Corneille Heymans, who had won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1938. Dr. Paul Janssen founded his own research laboratory in 1953, with a loan of 50,000 Belgian Francs from his father. In 1956, Paul Janssen received his teaching certificate for higher education in pharmacology with a thesis on “Compounds of the R 79 type.” He then left the university and in 1956 established the company which would become Janssen Pharmaceutica.

In 1957 he married Dora Arts, together they have five children, and 12 grandchildren. Paul Janssen died in Rome, Italy in 2003, while attending the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Pontificial Academy of Sciences. In 2005 he finished as runner up in the poll for "The Greatest Belgian" organised by the regional Flemish television.

Janssen Pharmaceutica discovered more than 80 new medicines. Four (five overall) of his medicines are on the WHO list of essential medicines; this is an absolute world record.

For his contributions to medicine Dr Paul Janssen was honoured on several occasions, such as with 22 honorary PhDs. In 1990 Dr Paul Janssen was knighted by Albert II of Belgium and became a Baron.

[edit] Further reading

van Gestel S, Schuermans V, Thirty-three years of drug discovery and research with Dr. Paul Janssen, Drug Development Research, Volume 8, Issue 1-4 , pp. 1-13.

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Persondata
NAME	Janssen, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Dr. Paul
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Scientist
DATE OF BIRTH	12 September 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH	Turnhout, Belgium
DATE OF DEATH	11 November 2003
PLACE OF DEATH	Rome, Italy