Paul Ehrlich as a commercial scientist and research administrator.

Historians and biographers have studied Paul Ehrlich as a biochemist, a medical messiah, and an eccentric. 1 The links with industry of this Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of experimental therapeutics and immunology have, however, been largely neglected. Perhaps this was because commercial involvement was regarded as unseemly by historians, or because those ties were thought to be insignificant in relation to the major contributions Ehrlich made to therapeutic practice and theory. More recently, attitudes have changed: Ehrlich's resurrection as a company scientist is almost complete after a large commemorative exhibition mounted by Hoechst AG and that company's sponsorship of a major new biography,2 facilitating further analysis of Ehrlich's commercial work. This paper goes beyond biography to provide an analysis of an early example of medical science as a corporate activity.