Max Tishler

Max Tishler (October 30, 1906 to March 18, 1989) was an American chemist born in Boston, Massachusetts, who studied under Elmer P. Kohler at Harvard before becoming president of Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories. Under his leadership Merck's research teams achieved the industrial synthesis of ascorbic acid, riboflavin, cortisone, pyridoxine, pantothenic acid, nicotinamide, methionine, threonine, and tryptophan, and he developed fermentation processes used to manufacture vitamin B12, streptomycin, and penicillin at scale. He also invented sulfaquinoxaline, a drug used to treat the poultry disease coccidiosis, and he later taught at Harvard and, after retiring from Merck, at Wesleyan University.