Criminal Story of a Prevention - Ukrainian Anti Cancer Institute

Professor Friedrich Kuffner, who further helped him with his research. In his home
laboratory, Nowicky had a whole collection of alkaloids.
One day as he returned home he found his flat door had been forced and the police,
who had been called by a neighbour, in his flat. Everything had been stolen. The thief was
never found.
However, once in a while there were also rays of hope. One of these came from the
Ministry of Trade where the head of the research department, Dr. Norbert Rozsenich, became
aware of this ‘student’. He supported his work with a commission worth € 22,000, which
came to Nowicky via Professor Kuffner for further research into greater celandine alkaloids.
Nevertheless, there was also resistance at the Institute of Pharmacology. Nowicky was
forbidden to carry out in vitro experiments because, as he found out from a colleague who
wanted to write his thesis on the preparation developed by Nowicky, the Ministry of Health
had intervened - despite the fact that it was not responsible for university matters.
Then once again he had to leave his laboratory table within two hours without
explanation. He later discovered from the laboratory assistant Walter Oparski that he had been
reported as a spy.
Professor Kuffner, who obviously did not have the power to retain his talented
protégé, found a place for him with Professor Bancher, a botanist, at the Technical Academy,
where he was able to work for a while before he was once again sent away from the
laboratory without explanation.
During this period, the pharmaceutical company La Roche offered him space at their
Vienna laboratory. However, Nowicky was not prepared to accept the condition that
everything he discovered there would belong to La Roche.
Nowicky could not explain the continuous harassment to which he was subjected. He
thought back in vain, looking for connections. The only thing he could think of was about the
time when his difficulties had begun. That was very soon after his arrival in Vienna. The
Chancellor had not only put him in touch with Wrba, but also with the Minister of Health,
Ingrid Leodolter. In 1976 there had been a meeting at the ministry where, besides Nowicky
and the minister, a civil servant from the registration department and the doctor, Professor
Karer, who carried out clinical studies for the pharmaceutical industry, were present. The
subject of the discussion was Nowicky’s ‘discovery’.
Karer had said that Nowicky’s patent was ‘nothing special’ and that it was not worth
undertaking further work on the drug. ‘That’s of no interest,’ he said, as Nowicky still irately
remembers – and that he flared up.
‘How can you say that when my substance is three hundred times less toxic than
normal cytostatica?’
At that time, Walter Hiesmayr had already tested the substance, which Nowicky had
named after his home country ‘Ukrain’, in vitro and on rats and mice and also discovered its
fluorescence.
The Minister of Health did not appear impressed by any of this, she merely wanted to
calm everybody down. ‘Gentlemen, please stop arguing.’ And that is as far as it went.
Immediately afterwards, Nowicky was forced to leave his first laboratory. His
brooding led him to the conclusion that it was the Ministry of Health, of all places, that had
begun placing obstacles in the way of his work. If this was true, the auspices were extremely
depressing. Nowicky was deeply discouraged.
To take his mind off all this, he booked a cheap bus trip to Paris for Easter. On Easter
Sunday he was walking through town visiting churches. That year the Catholic and Orthodox
Easters fell on the same day. Nowicky was a member of the United Church. He stayed for a
mass in Notre Dame and then wandered through Saint Germain. From the church of Saint
Germain he suddenly heard Ukrainian singing, went in and stayed until the end of the service.
A woman spoke to him and invited him, as was the tradition, to an Easter meal with many
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