The Billion-Dollar Molecule: The Quest for the Perfect Drug

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, which includes an updated epilogue about the most recent developments in the quest for a drug to cure AIDS.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 03/01/1995
Pages: 464
Weight: 0.9lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.55w x 1.16d
ISBN: 9780671510572


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/20/1995

About the Author
Barry Werth is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Washington Monthly, and GQ, where he is a writer-at-large. Currently at work on an expose about doctors and lawyers, he lives in Northampton, Massachusett