Dr. Frank M. Berger, 94; creator of tranquilizer Miltown, which inaugurated age of mood-changing drugs
His discovery became a fast-seller and a favorite among intellectuals and celebrities, until serious side effects were discovered.
Dr. Frank M. Berger, the psychiatrist who jump-started the modern age of mood-changing drugs with the discovery of the tranquilizer Miltown, died Sunday after suffering a heart attack at his home in New York. He was 94.
Berger was an anonymous researcher in the Yorkshire, England, laboratories of British Drug House Ltd. when he noticed that a chemical he was working with, myanesin, had a tranquilizing effect on laboratory animals -- calming their jitters, rendering them insensitive to pain and preventing them from returning upright when they were placed on their backs.
He and his colleagues described the short-lived effects in a 1946 report in the British Journal of Pharmacology that is now considered a classic.
His employer chose to let the discovery slide, but Berger kept thinking about it. After he became director of research at Wallace Laboratories in Cranbury, N.J., he and chemist Bernard J. Ludwig synthesized a series of compounds closely related to myanesin.
One of them was meprobamate.
A study of 101 patients at the Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield showed that 3% given the drug made a complete recovery, 29% were greatly improved and 50% were somewhat better.
Again, his employer failed to see a potential benefit from the compound. But this time, Berger decided to take matters in his own hands.
He and his colleagues made a short film about the effects of the drug on rhesus monkeys and played it for a group of physicians in San Francisco. That created enough interest in the compound that Wallace, a subsidiary of Carter Products, brought it to market in May 1955, naming it Miltown after the nearby village of Miltown, N.J. They also licensed rights to the drug to Wyeth Inc., which sold it under the name Equanil.
Before then, the only drugs available for treating mood disorders were barbiturates, powerful depressants that were addictive and had dangerous side effects.
Miltown was perceived to have none of those problems and it was an immediate hit, quickly becoming the best-selling drug that had ever been introduced in the United States and overwhelming the two companies' ability to produce it.
It became a favorite among intellectuals and celebrities, especially Hollywood types, who promoted its use enthusiastically. Television comedian Milton Berle, for example, frequently called himself "Miltown Berle."
