Website last accessed on 14.04.2023 One of the ongoing challenges with neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) is that the discovery of medicines to treat them has been very slow. Current global programmes for NTDs largely depend on donated medicines, primarily to treat the world’s poorest people – most of whom live in remote rural or in deprived urban settings. WHO recently spoke to Mr Robert J. Gyurik, who discovered albendazole in 1972. He took us through the journey that led him to develop the compound.