Resources: Drug Development: Interview with Roy Vagelos, Chairman of Merck & Co.

*** Drug Development: Interview with Roy Vagelos, Chairman of
Merck & Co.

"Roy Vagelos on AIDS Research and Drug Development," in the
March 1994 GMHC Treatment Issues, examines a number of
important areas from the viewpoint of perhaps the most
influential person in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr.
Vagelos is the chairman of Merck & Co., Inc., and the
principal organizer of the Inter-Company Collaboration for
AIDS Drug Development. Some quotes:

** "My opinion is that the cure, the real cure of any disease
will come from an observation that may be totally unrelated
to a focused applied program. And so the best thing that the
government could do is to continue to stimulate the off-the-
wall types of research that come from people who are not told
what do to. And people who develop real insight into
following their own leads and their own hunches and are
allowed to dream."

** "With AIDS, I am convinced that with persistence and
probably a combination of drugs aimed at the enzymes that are
now known we will be able to put together something that will
control the infection."

** "What concerns me the most is that the Clinton health care
reform proposal really puts our kind of work in great
jeopardy. What they essentially would like to do is to have
us invest and then at the end tell us what the price should
be [and] determine what is reasonable. I just cannot see
companies investing that kind of resources for that kind of
time [with] the government at the end."

Dr. Vagelos also discusses how he would focus a national AIDS
research program, and what kind of person he would put in
charge. He expresses great confidence in Dr. Harold Varmus,
the new director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
He explains the difference between the kinds of focused drug
development that pharmaceutical companies can do well, and
the basic research and insight which is more likely to come
from government-supported science.

The interview appears in the same issue as the protease
inhibitor article, reviewed above. To obtain a copy, see the
information above.