Hard Drugs16 Syys 2025

100 years of insulin in 15 minutes

A hundred years ago, insulin was scraped from pig pancreases. Today, it’s made by bacteria in giant tanks. In the second part of a mini series on proteins, drug development and AI, Saloni tells the story of how insulin went from a crude animal extract to the first genetically-engineered drug, kickstarting the biotech industry along the way.

Hard Drugs is a new podcast from Works in Progress and Open Philanthropy about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.

Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/

Jacob’s blog: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/

Books:

Genentech: The beginnings of biotech by Sally Smith Hughes

Articles:

FDA (2007). Celebrating a Milestone: FDA's Approval of First Genetically-Engineered Product https://fda.report/media/110447/Celebrating-a-Milestone--FDA%27s-Approval-of-the-First-Genetircally-Engineered-Product.pdf
Genentech (2016). Cloning Insulin https://www.gene.com/stories/cloning-insulin
Arthur Riggs (2020). Making, Cloning, and the Expression of Human Insulin Genes in Bacteria: The Path to Humulin https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article/42/3/374/6042201

Podcasts:

Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) by the Acquired podcast https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/novo-nordisk-ozempic

Acknowledgements:

Aria Babu, editor at Works in Progress
Adrian Bradley, on-site producer
Anna Magpie, fact-checking
Abhishaike Mahajan, cover art
Atalanta Arden-Miller, art direction
David Hackett, composer

Works in Progress & Open Philanthropy

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