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| History of the Paul Martini Foundation |
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The Paul Martini Foundation (PMF) was established by Medizinisch-Pharmazeutische Studiengesellschaft (Society for Medical and Pharmaceutical Studies) on August 4, 1966, with headquarters in Frankfurt and approved by the Hesse Minister of the Interior on August 25, 1966, pursuant to the founding charter. It was named after the pioneer of science-based clinical and therapeutic research, Professor Dr. med. Dr. med. h. c. Paul Martini.
At the time of its establishment, the Paul Martini Foundation was supported by five research-based pharmaceutical companies that were organized in the Society for Medical and Pharmaceutical Studies: Bayer AG, C. H. Boehringer Sohn, E. Merck, Hoechst AG and Schering AG.
The foundation's purpose is the support of pharmaceutical research, mainly by promoting the continued education of young scientists especially in the field of clinical pharmacology.
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In his eulogy during the ceremony when the Golden Paul Martini Medal was awarded to Wolfgang Wirth, Hans J. Dengler described the historic background of the idea for the foundation with the following words:
"In the 1930s, the necessary foundation for clinical pharmacology was basically in place. We had pharmacologists with a great commitment to pharmaceutical therapy - representative for all others I would like to name Mr. Heubner in this context. Furthermore, with Dost, Kupfmüller and Druckrey we had scientists who laid the foundation for modern pharmacokinetics at a time when nobody talked about this subject yet. With Bennhold, who habilitated at Hamburg in 1931 for internal medicine and clinical pharmacology, we also had a representative for biochemistry-oriented clinical pharmacology. And, in the clinical sector, we had a man who developed the methodology of controlled clinical trials in Germany with his methodology of clinical therapeutic research. Nevertheless, what was missing was the igniting spark for a field, which was imported in the end from the United States as clinical pharmacology."
Three of these scientists, namely Dost, Bennhold and Martini were honored with the Golden Paul Martini Medal because of their pioneering achievements.
In the early 1960s, there were a number of young scientists in Germany, who espoused the cause of clinical pharmacology and took their first steps in this direction. They came from both the clinical sector and from pharmacology - there was no accepted discipline as of yet.
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At that point in time, it was a lucky circumstance for the foundation to have found an experienced pharmacologist and toxicologist with a deep respect for the clinical field in its first scientific consultant, Professor Dr. phil. Dr. med. Dr. med. h. c. Wolfgang Wirth. In his pharmacology lectures, he warned his students time and again against blindly transferring findings from animal experiments to humans and emphasized that clinical experience was ultimately the decisive criterion. Apart from his scientific caution and prudence, Wirth was also characterized by his high degree of openness to communication and his helpfulness - especially for young professionals. Therefore, it was certainly no coincidence that the Paul Martini Foundation designed its support of clinical pharmacology in a very personal fashion from the outset.
The foundation started an intensive scholarship program with one-year stipends for the most part. Committed and talented scholarship recipients were selected and sent to appropriate institutions, predominantly in the United States. The result was a considerably large circle of younger scientists, who received their training in the U.S. and kept in touch with each other but also started and maintained a lasting dialog with important U.S. institutions.
Over the course of the scholarship program, it soon became apparent that the selection of suitable scholarship recipients and the choice of the appropriate host institution had to be complemented by financially supporting the research work of returning scholarship recipients. Only by heeding these three factors did it become possible to support at least some clinical pharmacologists in such a fashion as to facilitate the creation of research cells.
After 1969, the support of clinical pharmacology was expanded in the form of the Paul Martini Prize. It is offered every year on an international scale and awarded for outstanding work in clinical pharmacology. Initially set at DEM 5,000 and offered at EUR 25,000 today, this award has become widely recognized in scientific circles and has been given to numerous researchers in the past. The award is handed out every year during the Paul Martini reception during the conference of the German Society for Internal Medicine in Wiesbaden.
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Under the second scientific adviser, Professor Dr. med. Dr. med. h. c. Hans Erhard Bock, the Paul Martini Foundation established a "Clinical Pharmacology" program in collaboration with Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG - German Research Foundation) from 1974 to 1978. This program was supported by the Paul Martini Foundation with more than DEM 2 million and focused on the establishment of chairs for clinical pharmacology at German universities. Unfortunately, due to the recession that began between 1975 and 1977, the goal of institutionalizing and firmly establishing clinical pharmacology was insufficiently attained despite the positive attitude of many faculties.
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However, due also to the biennial Göttingen Seminars organized by the Paul Martini Foundation, it was possible to maintain a dialog between scholarship recipients, who reported on their work and their experiences, and to support and keep a growing circle of clinical scientists and pharmacologists in academia and industry. The idea of the necessity of a young specialized field prevailed: For example, in 1979, the Conference of Health Ministers recommended to the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs to devote special attention to the creation of chairs and departments for clinical pharmacology at universities. That same year, the Deutscher Ärztetag (Assembly of German Physicians) passed a resolution to establish clinical pharmacology and its related training courses.
At this point in time, the management board of the Paul Martini Foundation suggested updating the concept of the foundation's work. Without planning on deviating from the previous focus of clinical pharmacology, the board advocated an expansion of the foundation's tasks with a stronger focus on pharmacotherapy. The objective was to promote improved and more cost-effective pharmaceutical therapy that allows the targeted use of drugs with fewer side effects.
The latest findings in clinical pharmacology were supposed to be practically implemented. It became apparent that the future of the pharmaceutical industry depends significantly on the prescription behavior of office-based physicians, since they (among them especially specialists of internal medicine and general practitioners) are responsible for about 75 percent of all pharmaceuticals prescribed to the patients of statutory health insurance on an outpatient basis. This opinion was shared in numerous discussions with the medical profession and the Bundesärztekammer (National Medical Council), and the need for targeted education measures in "rational pharmacotherapy" was underscored.
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Under the leadership of its scientific advisers, Professor Dr. med. Hellmuth Kleinsorge and Professor Dr. med. Hans Josef Dengler, the Paul Martini Foundation evolved from an institution with "mere" financial support to an organizer of international venues (symposia, workshops, expert discussions) of the research-based industry, academia, the clinical sector and medical practices. As an example, we would like to name the symposia held at Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur (Academy of Sciences and Literature) in Mainz or the contributions of the Paul Martini Foundation to the main program of the annual convention of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin (German Society for Internal Medicine). The publications of the Paul Martini Foundation have also become a permanent item in the foundation's program of activities.
Over the years, the Paul Martini Foundation has continued to acquire a firm position in the field of internal medicine in Germany. In 1991, the member companies of the original foundation became corporate members of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin (German Society for Internal Medicine). The recognition for the Paul Martini Foundation has led to a decrease in the fear of contact between clinical medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.
In the beginning of the 1990s, the management board of the foundation discussed an adjustment of its objectives: Therefore, pharmaceutical therapy and clinical pharmacology still represent a focus in the work of the foundation, but other subjects have clearly increased in significance as compared to the past. In particular, public and health policy discussions have been added to purely scientific aspects. As a result, the management board considered the subjects of "cost-benefit analysis" and "quality of life" and their relevance for therapeutic research as especially urgent. The investigations revealed which qualitative and quantitative advantages pharmaceutical therapy offers for a large number of diseases. Pharmacoepidemiology was defined as another important subject.
In 1994, the Paul Martini Foundation overcame an important obstacle, i.e. the change from being supported by Medizinisch-Pharmazeutische Studiengesellschaft (Society for Medical and Pharmaceutical Studies) to the Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA). While this change was not easy, the foundation was able to master it.
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The foundation would like to thank all VFA member companies who proved their open-mindedness with regard to the objectives and scientific principles of the Paul Martini Foundation. The tasks the Paul Martini Foundation faces as part of the VFA have been consciously expanded by one contribution that the research-based industry can make to support clinical research in pharmaceutical therapy and pharmaceutical safety in the future.
In doing so, the Paul Martini Foundation hopes to get a little closer to the objective as it was worded by Bock during this thank-you speech at the award ceremony for the Golden Paul Martini Medal:
"... Pharmaceutical research must constantly be concerned with preserving the correspondence of the ideas of diseases and the ideas of treatment, of desire and reality with regard to influencing the process of diseases, the symmetry of expense and means and a healthy, justifiable relation of (maximum) benefit and (minimum) possibility of damage...
... The spirit of innovation must be in the right relationship to innovative ability, and we must always remember that inventions can not be planned through the chain of command, that scientific enthusiasm can not be scheduled and that ethics can not be subject to budget projections...
... The dangerous castling of humanity and budgetary constraints currently seems to be in full go. The medical sector must not be rendered powerless. The medical sector must be careful not to fall victim to any administrative alienation…"
The foundation will intensify the scientific dialog between the universities, the clinics, the research-based pharmaceutical industry and other research institutions as well as German and international authorities. In addition, it will point out the contributions made during pharmaceutical research efforts to the basic research for theoretical and practical medicine.
If all parties involved join forces, we may succeed in maintaining and solidifying Germany with its long-term experience in the field of research as a research location.
This is the objective of the Paul Martini Foundation and encompasses today's challenges.
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