The symposia in Firenze and Munster - see part 1 of this series of annotations - are considered as the numbers 1 and 2 of the series of symposia which were later named as the International Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry (ISMC) organized by national societies belonging to the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC). The third symposium in this series took place again in Milan, Italy in 1972. In the opening remarks to the symposium, Pietro Pratesi, who became one of the founders of the EFMC, gave a first definition of the field: "Medicinal chemistry has been defined as a basic science of health; and indeed it has many facets, since it uses the theoretical and experimental means of all branches of chemistry, especially organic chemistry, physical chemistry and biological chemistry." Pratesi also preluded some expected developments: the interpretation of the mechanism of action of drugs and the prediction of the biological activity of substances. It would take a long time, however, before the discipline became broadly accepted as a basic science in the field of chemistry.
The success of the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry drew the attention of European scientists, and in a number of countries new societies were started. In Italy the Società Italiana di Scienze Farmaceutiche (SISF,1954) was founded, and later, in 1980, the Italian group became a division of the Societá Chimica Italiana; in the United Kingdom the Society for Drug Research (1966) was formed, later renamed into The Society for Medicines Research; in France the Société de Chimie Thérapeutique was established (1966). In other countries new organizations were started as sections or divisions of existing learned societies: Belgium-Wallonia (Chemical Society,1973), Germany (Chemical Society, 1971), Sweden (Pharmaceutical Society, 1972), the Netherlands (Chemical Society, 1970).
Around 1970 about 5-10 different societies or divisions and sections were active, all more or less independently from each other. The IUPAC had noticed the new developments, but attempts during the early sixties to start a Division of Medicinal Chemistry within the IUPAC framework had failed; the field was considered to be just a special branch of synthetic organic chemistry, organic chemistry being a strong field within this important international body. In 1968 the Division of Organic Chemistry of the IUPAC organized together with the Division of Applied Chemistry, the 2nd International Symposium "Pharmaceutical Chemistry". This meeting, which took place in Munster (Germany) and is also known as the 2nd ISMC, was a significant success. It is quite remarkable that the term medicinal chemistry was not chosen, willingly neglecting the developments in both the USA and Europe, whereas instead the "old" wording of pharmaceutical chemistry was used. In general pharmaceutical chemistry is today not to be considered as an equivalent of medicinal chemistry, since the first deals with several, especially analytical, aspects of finished medicines, whereas medicinal chemistry focuses on the design, synthesis and (biological) characterization of the active ingredients of medicines.
A first international medicinal chemistry meeting, organized by the Soc. Chim. Therap. (France) together with their Belgian-Wallonian colleagues and in cooperation with organizations from Belgium- Flandres, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK (some of them at that time still in status nascendi), took place in September 1969 in Brussels. The chairman of the symposium was F. Martin. It is not known why this meeting in Brussels was not designated as the third ISMC, but clearly a new European organization was close to birth.
After the success of the Brussels meeting an ad hoc committee called "The European Committee on Medicinal Chemistry" was formed. Included as members were Drs E.J.Ariëns from the Netherlands, F.Martin (Belgium), P. Pratesi (Italy), K.E Schulte (Germany), and J Thuillier (France). This committee arranged a first business meeting in Paris in March 1969 and a subsequent meeting on 18th December 1969, also in Paris. In the meantime the IUPAC had founded (1969) a section on medicinal (!) chemistry as part of its Division of Organic Chemistry.
Participants of the December 1969 meeting were Drs Eloy (Belgium), Gautier (France), Jones (UK), Pratesi (Italy), Schulte (Germany), Thuillier (France) and Timmerman (the Netherlands, representing Nauta). It was decided that there were no obstacles to start a European organization besides the IUPAC section ,which was felt to be too much dominated by American influence and had, more importantly, typical IUPAC objectives, which were not specifically directed to the advancement of primary science. The participants discussed intensively the format of the new organization and its formal name. As all participants had the opinion that national societies would be continued it was decided that a federation was the best format. Also, because of differences between countries regarding the name of the discipline (drug research, chimie thérapeutique. farmacochemie, Arzneimittelforschung etc.) the internationally best accepted term medicinal chemistry was selected.
Subsequently the participants agreed on the foundation of "The European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry" (the official decision to found the federation being taken on 19th December 1969), thereby dissolving the European Committee on Medicinal Chemistry, and the IUPAC was informed accordingly. Thuillier was appointed as chairman with Mrs Simmonds as secretary (also secretary of the British Society for Drug Research). It was also decided to accept personal membership, but this decision has never been enacted. A very meaningful decision, which later on however caused certain conflicts with the rather traditional chemistry-oriented IUPAC, was that the federation should aim for intensive contacts with biochemistry, pharmacology and other neighboring disciplines.
From the beginning the EFMC had a rather loose structure. The founding fathers were a group of friends in science who worked hard for the benefit of their common interest. It seems they had forgotten that for a productive cooperation a solid structure and a guaranteed financial situation are much needed. There were no statutes or rules, no fees for membership, and everything was very loose indeed. More formal structures were established only much later. This oversight of the founders has led to problems in later years; these problems and the way in which they have been solved will receive attention in subsequent parts of these annotations.
In 1972 the third ISMC was organized, now under the sponsorship of the EFMC, Milan being the venue and Pratesi the main organizer. From the programme it became clear that medicinal chemistry was becoming recognized as a distinct discipline. In the concluding remarks as published in the official proceedings of the symposium, the famous medicinal chemist Adrien Albert stated:"The present Symposium represents a tremendous change in content from most of the earlier medicinal chemistry meetings. It was custom for the latter to be almost entirely chemical in nature, with only dark hints that the substances described had biological action" Albert even warned not to forget the chemistry as the major contributor to the field. He referred in his remarks to the magical moment at which the meeting took place: the isolation of the first agonist – receptor, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor by Changeux.
From the meeting in Milan it became clear that the field was opening into new directions; the EFMC came at the right moment to guide the developments, to foster international cooperation, to advance science for the benefit of mankind.
