Madeleine is a feminine given name. It is a form of Magdalene, well-known because of the Saint Mary Magdalene. Madeleine the patron saint of Vezelay Abbey, a world-heritage site located in Burgundy, France which houses the Benedictine abbey church, now the Basilica of Sainte-Mari-Madeleine on a hill.
David Vesely identified and characterised three peptide sequences. David worked on these peptide in the nineties with Doug Schocken and they published their findings in 1994 and 1998 in seminal articles in Circulation. Their work went ignored until a senior scientist, Dr. Stan Bastiras in Adelaide, Australia, pursued his idea that a technology he worked with could make at least one of the peptides, pro ANP 31-67, and cheap enough that it would justify its development as a potential drug. Similar peptides known as natriuretic peptides had been developed and registered as drugs for heart failure.
Tom Geimer met Stan, listened to his logic, and spun out the rights to the three Vesely peptides from Stan’s then employee Hospira, now Pfizer. That spin-out was named Madeleine by Stan. His logic was simple – Vesely sounds like Vezelay. David had a picture of Vezelay in his office in Tampa. Vesely and Vezelay led to the Abbey and the Basilica of Mary Madeleine. Tom took the logic a step further and registered the name Vastiras® in recognition of V(esley) and (B)astiras.