 The first large-scale application of the route took place in 1943, when Russell Earl Marker collected 10 tons of yam tubers to synthesize of progesterone, which was the largest single amount of progesterone that had been produced by that time.That single batch had a value of US$240,000 (approximately $3 million in 2009) at the time it was synthesized.The discovery of the Marker degradation led to the development of a fine chemical industry in Mexico which, starting from scratch and in less than ten years, supplied more than half the human sex hormones sold in the United States.