Charlie Rose to Emcee First Prix Galien USA Award Ceremony;
Will Recognize Top U.S. Achievements In Pharmaceutical Science
Prix Galien USA today announced that Emmy Award winner Charlie Rose will emcee the first Galien USA Award Ceremony in New York on September 25, 2007, to recognize outstanding scientific achievements in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
“We’re especially pleased Charlie Rose will emcee the award ceremony,” said Gerald Weissmann, Prix Galien USA Committee Chair. “The Charlie Rose Show is an American institution. He has a great inte rest in science and is currently producing a 12-part television series on scientific research in human health.”
The Prix Galien award originated in 1970 by French pharmacist Roland Mehl as a means to give recognition to outstanding pharmaceutical accomplishments. Since then, the award, named after Galen, the Greek father of medicine and pharmacology, has become one of the most coveted honors in the biomedical industry in Europe and Canada. It has been called “the Nobel Prize of pharmaceutical science.”
In February 2007, the Prix Galien USA was announced to honor top biopharmaceutical achievements in the U.S. Awards will be announced at the ceremony in September in several categories, as well as a “Pro Bonum Humanum” award for an individual or company that has made an outstanding contribution in medical science to those in need. The humanitarian award will be presented by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.
The honorees will be selected by a panel of 12 medical leaders, including seven Nobel Prize recipients. To be eligible, a biopharmaceutical must have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during the past five years (2002-2006)
Weissmann noted, “In mid 19th century, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes correctly noted that if each of the drugs in the pharmacopoeia were to be thrown into the ocean it would be better for mankind and the worse for the fishes. Life expectancy in the U.S. was 45 years.
In mid twentieth century, Nobel Laureate Otto Loewi defined a drug as a substance which, when injected into an animal, produces a paper. Life expectancy reached 60.
In 2007, thanks to all those papers of which Loewi spoke, a drug is a pharmaceutical agent, based on science, that is given to a patient to prevent, cure or ameliorate a disease. Life expectancy is near 80.”
Prix Galien USA rewards the achievements of pharmaceutical science, improving the human condition here and abroad.
The 2007 black-tie award ceremony will take place at Cipriani in New York City under the auspices of New York University.
Weissmann, an MD, is editor in chief of The FASEB Journal and Research Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine.
Contact:
Marian Temesvary
Prix Galien USA
mtemesvary@prix-galien-usa.com
212-699-9001
