Word: merck
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Last week the Food and Drug Administration gave its approval to lovastatin. The move will give millions of Americans a potent new ally in their battle against heart disease, the nation's No. 1 killer. Developed and manufactured by Merck & Co., the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant, the drug will be ) marketed under the trade name Mevacor. It is the first of a new class of compounds specifically designed to control cholesterol production. Says Scott Grundy, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas: "This is the first practical treatment...
...Akiro Endo, a scientist with the pharmaceutical firm Sankyo, wondered whether soil molds that kill cholesterol-containing bacteria might have evolved the ability to block cholesterol synthesis. In 1976, after testing 10,000 compounds, Endo found one that inhibited a key enzyme in the cholesterol-manufacturing process. Researchers at Merck soon discovered similar compounds, including lovastatin, but the finds would have remained research oddities without the Nobel-prizewinning work of UTHSCD's Joseph Goldstein and Michael Brown...
...Merck proceeded to develop lovastatin in earnest. Over the next four years the drug was tested on 750 people. Result: their LDL levels dropped by 19% to 39%. Although other drugs, such as cholestyramine and nicotinic acid, can reduce cholesterol levels significantly, they seem to work best on people whose levels are not very high. Lovastatin's greater effectiveness, Grundy explains, lies in its ability to inhibit cholesterol production in the liver, preventing further arterial blockage...
...companies are in the forefront. Merck & Co., a large pharmaceutical concern based in Rahway, N.J., invested $100,000 seven years ago to establish a day-care center in a church less than two miles from its headquarters. Parents pay $550 a month for infants and $385 for toddlers. Many spend lunch hours with their children. "I can be there in four minutes," says Steven Klimczak, a Merck corporate-finance executive whose three-year-old daughter attends the center. "It's very reliable, and that's important in terms of getting your job done...
Businesses that have made the investment in child care say it pays off handsomely by reducing turnover and absenteeism. A large survey has shown that parents lose on average eight days a year from work because of child-care problems and nearly 40% consider quitting. Studies at Merck suggest that the company also saves on sick leave due to stress-related illness. "We have got an awful lot of comments from managers about lessened stress and less unexpected leave time," says Spokesman Art Strohmer. At Stride Rite Corp., a 16-year-old, on-site day-care center in Boston...