Word: merck
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Vagelos was a teenager, he found his heroes at a luncheonette. In the late 1940s he mixed malteds and cleaned counters after school at Estelle's, the diner that his Greek immigrant family owned in Rahway, N.J. The town was, and still is, home to the laboratories of Merck, the giant pharmaceutical firm, and at lunchtime the company's research scientists often wandered into Estelle's, six blocks away. There Vagelos eavesdropped as the men who made Merck's miracle medicines talked about their work in the lab churning out such wondrous substances as penicillin and vitamin B-12. "They...
Vagelos, 58, decided to make that life his own, and he succeeded beyond his greatest expectations. A local boy who made really good, he traded his apron for a doctor's smock at medical school, eventually joined Merck and by 1986 had become the company's chairman, president and chief executive officer. Under the spell of Vagelos' visionary vigor, the company has recovered from a tepid performance in the early 1980s to become the world's No. 1 prescription drugmaker. Though many Americans probably could not name a single Merck product, especially since its Sucrets sore-throat lozenge and Calgon...
While many U.S. companies grumble that they cannot compete in the tough global environment, Merck pulls in more than half its sales from overseas customers. At a time when much of corporate America is focused on the next quarter's bottom line, Merck plows a higher chunk of its revenues into research and development (11%) than any rival drug company. Right now it has 50 new medicines in the works. And while other corporate chieftains spend much < of their time prowling for acquisitions, Vagelos prefers to look inward, spurring the research effort, boosting productivity and instilling a keenly competitive spirit...
...Magellan portfolio, since the London Exchange had not fared as badly as Wall Street. But even as Lynch was deciding what to sell, he was overcome by a bold urge to buy. "I was expecting a major rally the next day," he says. Prominent on his shopping list were Merck, Eastman Kodak and Pacific Telesis...
Moreover, Merck declared it would donate enough of the new drug through the World Health Organization to wipe out river blindness, possibly by the year 2000. For more than a decade, WHO has mounted spraying campaigns that have curbed the malady by attacking the carrier black flies. But in many areas the insects developed a resistance to the sprays. Enter ivermectin. The drug works by attacking the primary cause of the disease, the worms. Although it does not kill the invading parasites, biannual doses of ivermectin can prevent them from reproducing. Predicts Halfdan Mahler, director-general of WHO: "Ivermectin will...