Fentanyl
Fentanilo
- Date
- 1959 · confidence high
- Place
- Janssen Pharmaceutica, Beerse, Belgium
- Credited to
- Paul Janssen
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
At his newly founded Janssen Pharmaceutica, Paul Janssen synthesized fentanyl by modifying the structure of pethidine, obtaining an opioid several dozen times more potent than morphine and much faster-acting.
Sources place the synthesis in 1959-1960; it went on sale in Europe from 1963.
What it led to
- Widespread use as an intravenous analgesic and anaesthetic in surgery
- Development of a whole family of analogues (sufentanil, remifentanil, carfentanil)
- The rise of illicit fentanyl as a central driver of the North American opioid crisis