P. Roy Vagelos grew up during the Depression as a wise-cracking son of Greek immigrants. He left his family's small restaurant to become a doctor and went on to master three professions and become the Chief Executive Officer of the multinational pharmaceutical giant, Merck & Co. Medicine, Science, and Merck follows Vangelos' life from childhood to retirement, from his academic years at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University's Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital through his professional career at the National Institute of Health, Washington University, and Merck....

Merck and the pharmaceutical industry are headline news today. Controversies over public safety, prices, and the ability of the industry to develop the new drugs and vaccines that society needs have been covered worldwide. Roy Vagelos, who was head of research and then CEO at Merck from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s, addresses these issues here. Success with targeted research started Merck on a path that would lead to a series of block-buster therapies that carried the firm to the top of the global industry in the 1990s and Vagelos into the top position at the company. Trained as a...

Merck and the pharmaceutical industry are headline news today. Controversies over public safety, prices, and the ability of the industry to develop the new drugs and vaccines that society needs have been covered worldwide. Roy Vagelos, who was head of research and then CEO at Merck from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s, addresses these issues here. Success with targeted research started Merck on a path that would lead to a series of block-buster therapies that carried the firm to the top of the global industry in the 1990s and Vagelos into the top position at the company. Trained as a...