From a personal aspect, I had the wonderful opportunity back in 2007 of actually
meeting the very first child to take linazolid ever.
Steve Brickner is a medicinal chemist who had succeeded in bringing an entirely
new kind of antibiotic to market in the year 2000.
Though he'd already seen its power to cure.
She was dying from a vancomycin-resistant enterococcus infection.
You know, she was very seriously ill, and they knew that she was n't going to be around,
and there were no clinical trials then.
She took this drug on a compassionate use basis.
They made arrangements with the FDA and Upjohn to fly out.
You know, the drug in powder form.
They didn't even know how to give it to her because they couldn't get an IV in her.
She was that sick.
And this girl was two years old at the time she was treated with it, but she recovered completely.
At the time I met her in 2007, she was 11 years old, wonderful young lady, and she thanked us for saving her life.
And it was very, it was very moving.
I'm Roland Pease, and I 'd asked Dr Brickner in 2014 what it was like to know you 'd created a treatment with the power
to save thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost.
And I've never forgotten that reply.
It had taken, Dr Brickner, 13 years of testing and improving thousands of prototype compounds at Upton Pharmaceuticals