Identify common government/commercial practices that led to French/Japanese involvement in addressing BP/ALS treatment development.
French hygienists at the Pasteur Institute provided training for European/Asian scientists in the 19th century. Vaccine studies were locally based throughout the world at epidemic sites. Alexandre Yersin(France) / Shibosaburo Kitasato(Japan) working independently identified the plague bacillus and developed effective inactivated BP vaccines. Equine hyperimmune anti-BP serum prepared with inactivated, followed by live plague bacillus, was effective. International establishment of satellite Pasteur Institutes projected the scientific basis for vaccine production and French commercial interests followed this pathway.
Review of online/published sources describing French/Japanese involvement in BP/ALS treatment development.
Both France and Japan developed patient-based programs for ALS patients in the 1980s. Rhone-Poulenc-Rorer (RPR), a French pharmaceutical company that discovered chlorpromazine began developing riluzole for epilepsy and stroke in the late 1980s. Paris-based Gilbert Bensimon, Lucette Lacomblez and Vincent Meininger in the early 1990s began clinical studies of riluzole in ALS with government/RPR support reported in 1994 and 1996. At RPR(Japan), Tokyo-based Eric Louvel, who developed the patent for riluzole, engaged Nobuo Yanagisawa and others in a multi-center clinical trial of riluzole in ALS patients in Japan that together with clinical trial results in the USA/Europe led to riluzole approval in Japan in 1997. The authors gave a presentiment of future approaches to ALS research in Japan by noting that specific sub-group analysis would be needed to show drug efficacy. Subsequent to 1997, several clinical trial networks arose in Japan to support clinical trials for edaravone and mecobalamin.
19th century strategies to internationally project Pasteur Institute research and vaccine expansion were followed by commercial development to support the vaccine infrastructure. 20th century commercial development of riluzole led to dispersal in Japan of ALS clinical trial networks that supported development of edaravone/mecobalamin.