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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.
This inside account of Vertex, a start-up pharmaceutical company, conveys the exciting drama being played out in the pioneering and enormously profitable field of drug research. Vertex is dedicated to designing--atom by atom--a new life-saving immunosuppressant drug that has major implications for HIV research.
This inside account of Vertex, a start-up pharmaceutical company, conveys the exciting drama being played out in the pioneering and enormously profitable field of drug research. Vertex is dedicated to designing--atom by atom--a new life-saving immunosuppressant drug that has major implications for HIV research.
Documents the story of maverick pharmaceutical company Vertex and a small team of entrepreneurial scientists who after dissociating themselves from Merck endeavored to create breakthrough medicines and transform the pharmaceutical industry. By the award-winning author of The Billion-Dollar Molecule.
In this riveting medical detective story, Trent Stephens and Rock Brynner recount the history of thalidomide, from the epidemic of birth defects in the 1960's to the present day, as scientists work to create and test an alternative drug that captures thalidomide's curative properties without its cruel side effects. A parable about compassion-and the absence of it-Dark Remedy is a gripping account of thalidomide's extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and nations over half a century.
Two years after she underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy, Barbara Bradfield's aggressive breast cancer had recurred and spread to her lungs. The outlook was grim. Then she took part in Genentech's clinical trials for a new drug. Five years later she remains cancer-free. Her-2 is the biography of Herceptin, the drug that provoked dramatic responses in Barbara Bradfield and other women in the trials and that offers promise for hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients. Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, Herceptin has no disabling side effects. It works by inactivating Her-2/neu--a protein that makes cancer cells grow especially quickly-- produced by a gene found in 25 to 30 percent of all breast tumors. Herceptin caused some patients' cancers to disappear completely; in others, it slowed the progression of the disease and gave the women months or years they wouldn't otherwise have had. Herceptin is the first treatment targeted at a gene defect that gives rise to cancer. It marks the beginning of a new era of treatment for all kinds of cancers. Robert Bazell presents a riveting account of how Herceptin was born. Her-2 is a story of dramatic discoveries and strong personalities, showing the combination of scientific investigation, money, politics, ego, corporate decisions, patient activism, and luck involved in moving this groundbreaking drug from the lab to a patient's bedside. Bazell's deft portraits introduce us to the remarkable people instrumental in Herceptin's history, including Dr. Dennis Slamon, the driven UCLA oncologist who played the primary role in developing the treatment; Lily Tartikoff, wife of television executive Brandon Tartikoff, who tapped into Hollywood money and glamour to help fund Slamon's research; and Marti Nelson, who inspired the activists who lobbied for a "compassionate use" program that would allow women outside the clinical trials to have access to the limited supplies of Herceptin prior to FDA approval of the drug. And throughout there are the stories of the heroic women with advanced breast cancer who volunteered for the trials, risking what time they had left on an unproven treatment. Meticulously researched, written with clarity and compassion, Her-2 is masterly reporting on cutting-edge science.
In 31 Days, acclaimed historian Barry Werth takes readers inside the White House during the tumultuous days of August 1974, following Richard Nixon's resignation and the swearing-in of America's "accidental president," Gerald Ford. The Watergate scandal had torn the country apart. In a dramatic, day-by-day account of the new administration’s inner workings, Werth shows how Ford, caught between political expedience, the country’s demands for justice, and his own moral compass, struggled valiantly to restore the nation’s tarnished faith in its leadership. With deft and refreshing analysis Werth illuminates how this unprecedented political upheaval produced new fissures and battle lines, as well as new opportunities for political advancement for ambitious young men such as Donald Rumsfeld, who had been Nixon’s ambassador to NATO, and Dick Cheney, already coolly efficient as Rumsfeld’s former deputy. A superbly crafted presidential history with all of the twists and turns of a thriller, 31 Days sheds new light on the key players and political dilemmas that reverberate in today’s headlines.
Why has the biotechnology industry failed to perform up to expectations? This book attempts to answer this question by providing a critique of the industry. It reveals the causes of biotech's problems and offers an analysis on how the industry works. It also provides prescriptions for companies, seeking ways to improve the industry's performance.
Damages is the riveting true story of one family’s legal struggles in the world of medicine. At the urging of a friend, the Sabias filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Humes and Norwalk Hospital. Barry Werth takes us through the seven-year lawsuit, allowing us to see the legal strategy plotted by the Sabias’s attorneys, Connecticut’s premier medical malpractice law firm.
"This work provides eleven stories of drug discovery and features the scientists who made them. The outcome of the discovery work has provided novel therapies in cancer, cardiovascular medicine, antibacterial and antiviral infectious diseases, parasitic diseases, metabolic diseases, and weight control. Each story begins with the basic biomedical science that revealed the pathway to effective drug therapy and continues with the step-by-step process that leads from insight to a product in clinical practice meeting a defined medical need. The tales feature creative problem solving by clever and dedicated scientists as they overcame roadblocks to success., hallelujah moments. Each drug discovery story reflects the interface between basic science, medicine, and drug discovery. Embedded in these tales are the societal and medical environments in which drug discovery takes place, the discovery of agents to treat HIV/AIDS, for example. Finally, a series of appendices provides basic chemical background for non-scientists"--
Giant Molecules by A. I?U. Grosberg,A. R. Khokhlov,Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Pdf
?? Giant molecules are important in our everyday life. But, as pointed out by the authors, they are also associated with a culture. What Bach did with the harpsichord, Kuhn and Flory did with polymers. We owe a lot of thanks to those who now make this music accessible ??Pierre-Gilles de GennesNobel Prize laureate in Physics(Foreword for the 1st Edition, March 1996)This book describes the basic facts, concepts and ideas of polymer physics in simple, yet scientifically accurate, terms. In both scientific and historic contexts, the book shows how the subject of polymers is fascinating, as it is behind most of the wonders of living cell machinery as well as most of the newly developed materials. No mathematics is used in the book beyond modest high school algebra and a bit of freshman calculus, yet very sophisticated concepts are introduced and explained, ranging from scaling and reptations to protein folding and evolution. The new edition includes an extended section on polymer preparation methods, discusses knots formed by molecular filaments, and presents new and updated materials on such contemporary topics as single molecule experiments with DNA or polymer properties of proteins and their roles in biological evolution.
How do scientists design the medicine we use to improve our lives? It turns out that many are happy accidents or overlooked mixtures of carbon and hydrogen that go on to not only improve the lives of people the world over, but become million- and billion-dollar makers for pharmaceutical companies. In Making Medicine: Surprising Stories from the History of Drug Discovery, author Keith Veronese examines fifteen different molecules and their unlikely discovery –or in many cases, their second discovery –en route to becoming invaluable medications. From the famous story of Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, to lesser-known stories surrounding drugs like quinine (derived from the bark of the cinchona tree and responsible for saving the lives of millions in the fight against malaria), Veronese reveals the “how” and the “who” behind the pharmaceutical breakthroughs that continue to impact our world. With subjects including cancer-fighting therapies and over-the-counter pain relievers; hair regrowth creams and antidepressants; readers will no doubt have a personal connection to at least one molecule in this book. Like all discoveries made by mankind, the stories behind these breakthroughs and their introduction to the world are often messy, sometimes controversial, and always human. Take digoxin, which correctly prescribed can help heart efficiency, but in higher doses can prove fatal –a fact known all too well by Charles Cullen, a nurse who used digoxin to kill over forty patients. Making Medicine also details how modern pharmaceutical discovery works, including the monumental challenge and accomplishment of creating a COVID-19 vaccine. This fascinating book highlights the serendipitous nature of the discovery of these miracle molecules, along with how they do (or don't) interact with the human body to produce the desired result.
Recommended by Bill Gates and included in GatesNotes "Elaborating on the science as well as the business behind the fight against cystic fibrosis, Trivedi captures the emotions of the families, doctors, and scientists involved in the clinical trials and their 'weeping with joy' as new drugs are approved, and shows how cystic fibrosis, once a 'death sentence,' became, for many, a manageable condition. This is a rewarding and challenging work." —Publishers Weekly Cystic fibrosis was once a mysterious disease that killed infants and children. Now it could be the key to healing millions with genetic diseases of every type—from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and sickle cell anemia. In 1974, Joey O'Donnell was born with strange symptoms. His insatiable appetite, incessant vomiting, and a relentless cough—which shook his tiny, fragile body and made it difficult to draw breath—confounded doctors and caused his parents agonizing, sleepless nights. After six sickly months, his salty skin provided the critical clue: he was one of thousands of Americans with cystic fibrosis, an inherited lung disorder that would most likely kill him before his first birthday. The gene and mutation responsible for CF were found in 1989—discoveries that promised to lead to a cure for kids like Joey. But treatments unexpectedly failed and CF was deemed incurable. It was only after the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a grassroots organization founded by parents, formed an unprecedented partnership with a fledgling biotech company that transformative leaps in drug development were harnessed to produce groundbreaking new treatments: pills that could fix the crippled protein at the root of this deadly disease. From science writer Bijal P. Trivedi, Breath from Salt chronicles the riveting saga of cystic fibrosis, from its ancient origins to its identification in the dank autopsy room of a hospital basement, and from the CF gene's celebrated status as one of the first human disease genes ever discovered to the groundbreaking targeted genetic therapies that now promise to cure it. Told from the perspectives of the patients, families, physicians, scientists, and philanthropists fighting on the front lines, Breath from Salt is a remarkable story of unlikely scientific and medical firsts, of setbacks and successes, and of people who refused to give up hope—and a fascinating peek into the future of genetics and medicine.
The drug development process in the United States has become so weighted down by a business-as-usual paradigm that an average of more than $2 billion is spent to secure FDA approval for every new drug. Because the investment required is so extreme, drug development companies are understandably focused on discovering and developing drugs designed for large patient populations: diseases experienced by millions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or some of the more common cancers. In Unnecessary Expense, Dr. Charles Theuer, CEO of TRACON Pharmaceuticals, outlines the problem and offers a solution: an aligned and streamlined model that emphasizes quality and reduces the time and cost of drug development, while also harnessing global innovation to benefit patients with rare diseases in urgent need of new treatments. Here Dr. Theuer shows the value of a pharmaceutical paradigm shift, to enable the development of drugs for patients who need them, at a fraction of the time and cost.
THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY IS BROKEN From the American hedge fund manager who drastically hiked the price of an AIDS pill to the children’s cancer drugs left intentionally to expire in a Spanish warehouse, the signs of this dysfunction are all around. A system built to drive innovation and improve patient care has been distorted to maximise profits. In Sick Money, the investigative journalist who exposed a billion-pound British price-hiking scandal goes inside the global battle over high drug prices. From secret deals to patients forced to turn to the black market, Billy Kenber reveals how medicines have become nothing more than financial assets. He offers a diagnosis of an industry in crisis - and a prescription for how it could be fixed.
