Medicine, Science and Merck

This book traces the careers of Roy Vagelos, who eventually became the CEO of Merck and Co., Inc.

P. Roy Vagelos (Author), Louis Galambos (Author)

9780521662956, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 January 2004

314 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.6 cm, 0.557 kg

"This journey shines with optimism for all of us who have become demoralized by the failure of the ideals of science, medicine, and the corporate world and by the threat of defeat of our shared ethical vision. The book also gives heart to the reader to take a similar journey, assessing its enduring values, measuring its missed opportunities, admiring its texture." New England Journal

In Medicine, Science, and Merck, the authors trace the careers of a son of Greek immigrants as he mastered three professions and ultimately became the Chief Executive Officer of America's most admired corporation - the multinational, pharmaceutical giant, Merck and Co., Inc. As the authors show, there was hope even for a wise-cracking kid living through the hard times of the 1930s. Education brought out the scholar in Roy Vagelos, who left his family's small restaurant to attend the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia's Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. At NIH, he mastered biochemistry; at Washington University he became a distinguished science administrator; and at Merck, he headed the pharmaceutical industry's most innovative laboratory and then became its CEO. Throughout, he never lost touch with his family values, his intense desire to help others, or his faith in the partnership principle and the competition that makes it work.

1. The making of a physician
2. Hot science in big government
3. The French alternative
4. The research university - American style
5. Turning the corner at Merck
6. Crisis
7. 'Blockbusters'
8. On-the-job training
9. Global aspirations
10. The moral corporation
11. Getting to know the Clintons
12. Partners.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], History of medicine [MBX], Business & management [KJ], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], History of the Americas [HBJK], Biography: general [BG]