Who Invented Glivec? Does It Matter Anyway?

In 2003, the then Novartis Chief ;Executive Officer Daniel Vasella published a book (Vasella and Slater 2003) in praise of Glivec detailing his firm’s major role in delivering this uncommonly effective life-saving medicine. But, who was really responsible? In the original US patent,¹ one single person is named as the inventor: Jürg Zimmermann of Ciba Geigy (later Novartis). In the later US patent on the beta crystalline form, held in India to be unpatentable, Zimmermann is joined by two Novartis colleagues.² However, contrary to what this might suggest, chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patients would never have received a product called Glivec if they had had to rely solely on Novartis.

Credit in science and technology is a devilishly tricky matter to be objective about. Effort, dedication, inspiration, vision, ambition, intuition, counter-intuition, advanced technical knowledge in one or more disciplines, skill, serendipity, networking abilities, and sheer bloody-mindedness, all help make a creative achievement possible. But, assessing what contributions and which people are not just important, but indispensable, can be a tough task.