The Past Speaks

May 1, 1914, will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Antitoxin Laboratory in the University of Toronto, later known as Connaught Laboratories, and today the Canadian component of the global Sanofi Pasteur vaccine company.

To celebrate and document the rich history of this unique Canadian organization and its contributions to the evolution of numerous vaccines and other essential biological health products, a new Facebook page has recently been launched called:

Each week at least 2 historical articles and related archival photo albums will be posted to this Facebook feed. They will focus on key events, milestones, and people from this company’s distinctive history. The postings will tap into the Connaught Campus’ extensive archive of documents, photographs and video that I have become quite familiar with through my historical consulting services there.

Connaught Laboratories was a self-supporting, public service focused, part of the University of Toronto from 1914 through 1972 and then it was sold and privatized. Since 1989, though a series of global purchases and mergers has evolved into the Canadian division of Sanofi Pasteur. Connaught Labs is most noted for its major contributions to the research, development and production of insulin, diphtheria toxoid, pertussis vaccine, heparin, smallpox vaccine, polio vaccines (esp. the Salk vaccine), and component pertussis vaccine.

More about the history of the lab can be found here.