BILLION DOLLAR MOLECULE: THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT DRUG

Rating:
Summary: Very Good profile on a Small Start up in Drug Dev.
Review: Working in a small start up biotech company, I found many parallels with the "Vertex Story" and the company I work for. I was able to identify with the pressure of finding a lead drug candidate (though not quite as intense as those Vertex scientists who went to Hell and back), the rallying of all the employees to do the best thing for the company, and hoping that upper management can keep raising the cash to keep us going. I might add that raising money now has become even more challenging with the advent of the Internet and the dot com companies that have taken a huge chunk of the available investment dollars. The story that unfolds in this book is a very good depiction of how difficult it is to find a drug candidate let alone one that will make it all the way through the FDA-required clinical trials. The clinical trials, although outside the scope for this book, are a significant part of getting a drug to the market and present their own set of challenges. A good book to get a pretty good feel of this is HER-2 by Robert Bazell about the road Genentech's Herceptin took before finally receiving FDA approval to treat breast cancer.