The progress in development of the Soviet penicillin industry in the late 1940s was associated with implementation of foreign experience. The article, on the basis of analysis of declassified archival documents, demonstrates that one of the initiators of development of industry on the basis of foreign technologies was N. M. Borodin, doctor of biological sciences. N. M. Borodin, while on scientific assignments in England, provided the USSR with important scientific and technical information and producers for production of penicillin and streptomycin. It is established that familiarity of N. M. Borodin with arrangement of scientific research and organization of antibiotics production abroad resulted in his plan of developing the Soviet penicillin industry that was noted by the USSR leadership.
Keywords: Nikolai Mikhailovich Borodin; antibiotic; penicillin; streptomycin.