8 - Research and development: a strategy of science?

Summary

The immediate post-war years

In 1945 Frank Robinson, Glaxo's director of research, left the company (he became successively research director for Distillers (1945–1948), Allen & Hanburys (1948–1960) and Twyford Laboratories). He was replaced by T. F. Macrae (b. 1906). Educated at Glasgow and Munich Universities (where he did biochemical work on enzymes), Macrae had worked on pituitary hormones for the Lister Institute (1931–1933) and on cancer research at the London Hospital (1933–1935), before appointment to the nutrition department of the Lister Institute. After war service with the RAF as a nutrition expert, he was recruited by Jephcott after demobilisation, and remained research director for almost twenty years.

When, early in 1946, it was decided to overhaul Glaxo's research, the company found its capacity for change circumscribed by various factors. Foremost among these was the cramped accommodation for research activities; but there was little hope of immediate improvement, given post-war shortages of building materials and the stringency of centralised building controls. ‘Not only is it impossible to obtain additional accommodation for research, it is impossible to obtain buildings within which to manufacture and pack the products that may result from such research’, a memorandum noted in February 1946, adding that as Glaxo Laboratories was generally ‘experienced in, and equipped for, the production of materials in relatively small quantities – in kilos rather than tons.[…] [a] product having a high activity and a small dosage fits in most readily with our present organisation’.