Who Invented Prozac?

Prozac, the world's most prescribed antidepressant, is the registered brand for fluoxetine hydrochloride. It is the first product of a new generation of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs developed for depression. These drugs increase the amount of neurotransmitters in the brain called serotonin, which are believed to have an effect on sleep, appetite, nerves and mood. Prozac increases the amount of these neurotransmitters in the brain by preventing their absorption and destruction by the brain.

The team that discovered Prozac includes Eli Lilly staff members Bryan Molloy, Ray Fuller, and David Wong. In the early 1980s, it was known that the antihistamine diphenhydramine has an antidepressant-like structure. Initially, the team took 3-phenoxy-3-phenylpropylamine (a compound with a diphenhydramine-like structure) and synthesized dozens of different derivatives of it. It was observed that fluoxetine hydrochloride was most effective on mice.

Fluoxetine hydrochloride was first tested on patients who were obese and were also hospitalized for showing signs of depression. However, both groups did not respond positively to this drug. Eli Lilly then tried this drug on patients with moderate symptoms of depression, and all subjects responded well to it.

Prozac was first launched in Belgium in 1986 and made history as the most quickly accepted psychiatric drug. Three years later, the drug was being sold by prescription to 65,000 patients each month, and by the early 1990s, 4.5 million Americans had taken it. Until the side effects of Prozac were noticed, the drug was shown as a cure for millions of unhappy people. But later on, Prozac garnered both positive and negative reactions. In some reports, the drug worked miracles, while others pointed out that it made severe changes in the personalities of the patients and triggered suicide.