Barry Werth (Get this book)This follow-up to the author's book about upstart Vertex Pharmaceuticals details the firm's transition from boutique creative group to profitable prescription drug maker. Business and science writer Werth offers a blow-by-blow account of visionary Harvard chemist Joshua Boger's struggle to create a pace-setting drug company to develop breakthrough drugs for serious diseases. Attracted by Vertex's seemingly quixotic quest to put patients first in an industry dominated by profits and Wall Street, the author once again obtained unusual access to company scientists and officers and followed their passion and work as they shepherded their first drugs through discovery, development and introduction to the marketplace. A revealing, readable book about "some of competitive capitalism's most complicated science and most cutthroat marketing maneuvers.--Kirkus
