Croda staff mourn as film hero Lorenzo dies.

CRODA chemical employees on Teesside were saddened by news that Lorenzo Odone, the boy the company helped keep alive and whose story was dramatised in the 1992 tearjerker Lorenzo's Oil, has died.

Although the triglyceride purified from erucic acid in rape seed oil, was made at the firm's Stafforshire plant, the extraordinary story of the Odones' singleminded fight against both the medical and pharmaceutical establishments, was well known to local employees, who followed Lorenzo's progress and sent messages of condolence.

Lorenzo died aged 30 - defying doctors who said he would not survive the debilitating genetic disorder adrenoleucodys trophy (ADL) beyond his eighth birthday.

His parents credited the oil for extending his life.

Keith Layden, Croda president of enterprise technologies, said the family had 'clearly challenged the fundamental basis of the pharmaceutical industry' and Lorenzo had left a life-saving legacy.

"If you genetically screen children and find that they are predisposed to the disease and place them on a diet of Lorenzo's Oil before they show clinical signs, 70% do not develop the disease into adulthood."

CAPTION(S):

LOST BATTLE: Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte in the hit Hollywood film, Lorenzo's Oil, which told the story of Lorenzo Odone whose life was extended by oil made by Croda chemicals