Medicine, Science and Merck

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. Throughout, Vagelos never lost touch with his family values, his intense desire to help others, and his faith in the partnership principle and the competition that makes it work. P. Roy Vagelos and Louis Galambos offer an unusual perspective on working in three leading professions: medicine, science, and business. They take readers inside the laboratory and boardroom of one of America's large corporations, analyzing the mistakes and the innovations of Merck. P. Roy Vagelos, M.D. served as CEO of Merck & Co., Inc. from 1985 to 1994. Before assuming responsibilities in business leadership, he had won scientific recognition as an authority on lipids and enzymes and as a research manager. The author of more than 100 scientific papers, Vagelos has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Louis Galambos has written extensively on U.S. business-government relations, on economic aspects of modern institutional developments and on the rise of the bureaucratic state. A professor at Johns Hopkins University, Professor Galambos is the author of several books, including Anytime, Anywhere (Cambridge, 2002).