About me

My name is Luis Ernesto Miramontes, and I am the inventor of the contraceptive pills. I was a Mexican chemist born in Tepic, Nayarit, on March 16, 1925 and died in Mexico City on September 13, 2004.

I studied high school at the National Preparatory School of the UNAM, a degree in chemistry at the UNAM and was a co-founder researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the same University, carrying out research in the area of Organic Chemistry.

I was professor at the Faculty of Chemistry at the UNAM, Director and Proffesor of the school of Chemistry at the Iberoamerican University and Deputy Director of Basic Research at the Petroliferous Mexican Institute.

Among my many contributions to Mexican and universal science, highlights the synthesis on October 15, 1951, when I was only 26 years old, noretisterone, which is the active base compound of the first synthetic oral contraceptive, better known as contraceptive pill.

In 2005, the Mexican Academy of Sciences called my invention the Mexican contribution to the world’s most important science of the 20th century.

I died in Mexico City on September 13, 2004 at the age of 79.