Dr. Louise Newson

But they realised.

Yeah.

But women felt better.

And as you know, Liz, and a lot of your listeners will know, people are desperate to try anything when they're feeling ill.

So it did improve symptoms.

But what they realized was that they had to try and get something to market because if they got it to market with a pharmaceutical company, it would be prescription only.

So then the doctors would get financial reward.

The pharmaceutical companies were.

But they also found quite quickly that there were the similar hormones in pregnant horses' urine.

So they worked with abattoir owners as well, people that owned horses too.

So the gynecologists were paid to work with the pharmaceutical companies who funded research and funded these hormones to be made.

But they altered the chemical structure so they could market it as a drug.

Now, one of the things I'm very interested in is chemistry and chemical structure.

And if you think everything we have that's got a molecule has a chemical structure of its own, and that's why they have their own molecular properties, it's a bit like I sometimes think about a key in a lock.

So you've got a certain cut key, fits into the right lock, and the lock is the receptor on the cells, which is waiting for that hormone to go into it.

Now, they can't use the same size key.

They have to use a different one.

So they chemically alter it and then they call it oestrogen or they call it progesterone or they called it testosterone, but it wasn't the same.

So why couldn't they use the same one?

Because they wouldn't be able to patent it.