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A circuitous pharmaceutical journey to Liliput
Author(s) -
Bridges Alex
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
drug development research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1098-2299
pISSN - 0272-4391
DOI - 10.1002/ddr.20182
Subject(s) - active listening , reading (process) , transition (genetics) , pharmaceutical industry , humanity , psychology , sociology , history , law , medicine , political science , chemistry , communication , pharmacology , biochemistry , gene
The author describes some of his meandering through 35 years of organic and medicinal chemistry, with emphasis on nearly a quarter of a century in the pharmaceutical industry. Special attention is paid to the not exactly voluntary transition from being an allegedly important cog at a pharmaceutical leviathan, to a possibly useful cog at a pharmaceutical minnow. This is a transition that many in the industry have already made, and many more will be making in the future, whether they wish to do so or not. The author's view of said process is the main content of this article. The habitual sense of loss that accompanies such a change is described, along with the realization that although much good disappears when a well‐running team is scattered to the four winds, most of the remaining loss is bells and whistles, pomp and circumstance, and what may be given back is the primacy of science, and the possibility of listening and responding again to “the still sad music of humanity,” as opposed to third‐rate business school gibberish. Recommended reading: Tennyson's “Ulysses.”. Drug Dev Res 68:197–204, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.