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The Billion Dollar Molecule

One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug

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About this listen

Join journalist Barry Werth as he pulls back the curtain on Vertex, a start-up pharmaceutical company, and witness firsthand the intense drama being played out in the pioneering and hugely profitable field of drug research.

Founded by Joshua Boger, a dynamic Harvard- and Merck-trained scientific whiz kid, Vertex is dedicated to designing - atom by atom - both a new life-saving immunosuppressant drug and a drug to combat the virus that causes AIDS.

You will be hooked from start to finish, as you go from the labs, where obsessive, fiercely competitive scientists struggle for a breakthrough, to Wall Street, where the wheeling and dealing takes on a life of its own, as Boger courts investors and finally decides to take Vertex public. Here is a fascinating, no-holds-barred account of the business of science that includes an updated epilogue about the most recent developments in the quest for a drug to cure AIDS.

©1994 Barry Werth; Introduction copyright 2014 by Barry Werth (P)2021 Tantor
Biological Sciences Biotechnology Medicine & Health Care Industry Pharmacology Science
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Although an interesting story it seemed to take forever to get to the end denouement - and I still don’t understand whether the company did create a billion dollar molecule…

Not as exciting as the title suggests!

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