John Hartmann of West Windsor has a second career with his research-based biopharmaceutical company. He is retired from Merck in Rahway, where he worked on research for asthma and developed systems for testing drugs.
A graduate of Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, he spent seven years in the Army Reserve medical corps, earned a doctorate at the University of Toronto in cell biology and did postdoctoral work at Harvard and Pennsylvania universities.
He recently received a Department of Defense biomedical grant to continue working with U.S. Army investigators at the Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon, Georgia. The grant will fund the development of antibiotics for emergency treatment of severe bone injuries suffered in combat.
“We are pleased that we can continue working with U.S. Army investigators to develop our compounds for treating wounded American GIs and those of our allies,” says Hartmann. “Among other uses, these compounds have been designed to treat or prevent osteomyelitis, a serious infection of the bone.”
As a teenager, Hartmann had osteomyelitis and was hospitalized for two weeks. “Antibiotics don’t really work for osteomyelitis, which can turn into a chronic condition,” he says. “Many GIs who have had compound fractures never quit get rid of the infection and must return to the VA hospital on a regular basis.”
“Our antibiotic, designed to prevent osteomyelitis, would be used as an emergency treatment under battlefield conditions,” he says. “The first 12 to 24 hours are very critical.”
A sister company, ElizaNor Polymer, is developing novel biomolecular delivery nano-devices for targeting drugs to malignant tumors. Research is being done in Hungary at the University of Debrecin.
His wife, Betsy, is the bookkeeper for the two firms. Their son, John William Hartmann, is an attorney in West Windsor and has been West Windsor’s public defender.
Their daughter Elizabeth died from a blood clot in 1989 when she was five months pregnant with their granddaughter Nora. The companies are named after them.
