Drug Firm to Give $400,000 On Behalf of Inventor of Pill

The G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company will anounce Wednesday the endowment of $400,000 to the School of Public Health in commemoration of the discoverer of successful oral contraception.

Dr. Gregory Pincus, who died in 1967, was the pioneer researcher for an effective birth control pill, and the donation will be made in his name.

The Searle Company could not be reached for a statement yesterday, but Roger Spaulding, assistant dean and head of the development office of the Medical School, said Friday that Searle has two reasons for making the donation.

"The company has great respect for Harvard's Center of Population Studies and School of Public Health," he said. "What's more, Pincus did get his two graduate degrees here."

Pincus received his Master of Science and Doctor of Science degrees from Harvard in 1927. He began his experiments in the '30s while an assistant professor of Zoology and Biology here, and derived the first successful oral contraceptive from the roots of wild Mexican yams in the early '50s.

Synthesized and marketed by the Searle firm under the trade name Enovid, the contraceptive passed inspection by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960.