Redoxon

Redoxon is the brand name of the first artificially synthesized ascorbic acid (vitamin C).[1] Redoxon was first marketed to the general public by Roche in 1934, making it the first mass-manufactured synthetic vitamin in history.[2] The brand is now owned by German pharmaceutical company Bayer and is sold in many countries.

History

The product was developed by a team headed by chemist Tadeusz Reichstein, who discovered a method of synthesizing 30-40 grams of vitamin C from 100 grams of glucose. This used an intermediate step of creating sorbose using a bacterial fermentation method discovered by a French researcher, Gabriel Bertrand. In this method, fruit flies were attracted to a mixture of wine, vinegar, yeast bouillon, and sorbitol, a substance easily chemically prepared from glucose. Flies that fed upon sorbitol as a major food substrate excreted bacteria that were able to synthesize sorbose from sorbitol. The bacteria species was isolated, cultured and used in a fermentation process to make sorbose. From sorbose, chemical reactions were used to complete the synthesis of ascorbic acid.[3]

Despite concern about starting with a wild strain of bacteria for fermentation production of sorbose, the process was superior in cost and yield to a rival method by Albert Szent-Györgyi that isolated vitamin C from capsicum (peppers). After the sale of the Reichstein process patent to Hoffmann-La Roche, this process became the basis of the corporation's large-scale production of vitamin C.[3]

The present-day Redoxon tablets are compounded from ascorbic acid and sodium bicarbonate. When these are added to water, they react to produce