Frederik Paulsen Sr

Frederik Paulsen Sr (born Friedrich Paulsen, 31 July 1909 in Dagebüll, died 3 June 1997 in Alkersum) was a German-Swedish medical doctor and the founder of Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Harassed and threatened by National Socialists while studying in Kiel in 1933 because of his political beliefs, he fled to Malmö in Sweden by way of Basel and took Swedish citizenship in 1941, changing his given name to Frederik. He founded Ferring in 1950 on his research into hormones and their synthetic production, and was one of the first people to synthesize the human hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. In later life he retired to the island of Föhr, worked to preserve the Frisian language and culture, and set up the Ferring Stiftung in 1988.