The antidote : inside the world of new pharma
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

In 1989, the charismatic Joshua Boger left Merck, then America's most admired business, to found a drug company that would challenge industry giants and transform health care. Journalist Barry Werth described the company's tumultuous early days during the AIDS crisis in The Billion-Dollar Molecule, a celebrated classic of science and business journalism. Now he returns to tell the story of Vertex's bold endurance and eventual success. The pharmaceutical business is America's toughest and one of its most profitable. It's riskier and more rigorous at just about every stage than any other business, from the towering biological uncertainties inherent in its mission to treat disease; to the 30-to-1 failure rate in bringing out a successful medicine; to the multibillion-dollar cost of ramping up a successful product; to operating in the world's most regulated industry, matched only by nuclear power. Werth captures the full scope of Vertex's 25-year drive to deliver breakthrough medicines.--From publisher description.

"This is the Moneyball of the pharma world, the story of one drug company's quest to transform the pharmaceutical industry and a deeply revealing look into a world where breakneck capitalism meets life-saving medicine.The $325 billion-a-year pharmaceutical business is America's most challenging and one of its most profitable. It is tougher in just about every way than any other enterprise: from the towering biological risks inherent in its mission to treat disease; to the thirty-to-one failure rate in bringing out a successful medicine after a candidate clears all the hurdles to get to human testing; to the billion-dollar-plus cost of ramping up a successful product; to operating in the worlds most highly regulated industry with the possible exception of nuclear power. The Antidote tells the story of Vertex, a maverick drug company led by the charismatic Joshua Boger and a small group of entrepreneurial young scientists who broke off from Merck when it was the world's best drug maker, indeed the most admired business in America because they thought they could make drugs better. Building upon his widely praised The Billion-Dollar Molecule, Barry Werth captures the full scope of Vertex's twenty-five-year drive to deliver breakthrough medicines and transform the drug industry. The Antidote draws upon unprecedented inside reporting spanning more than two decades to provide a groundbreaking close-up of Vertex's inner workings and the ferocious but indispensable world it inhabits"--Provided by publisher.