Word: productive
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...problems were wrenching because academia and industry are fundamentally incompatible. Academics are concerned with the search for truth, no matter how irrelevant the subject may appear to be. Industry focuses on applied research, on developing a useful product and rushing it to market. Professors depend on openness of communication, on sharing news of discoveries to further the advancement of knowledge and research. Industry relies on secrecy, on keeping information about products and processes from competitors...
Many economic analysts think the new union upsurge is a product of Britain's current prosperity. Since 1980 the British gross domestic product has risen by 19.8%, while company profits have surged. Says Ernie Velox, an assembly-line worker at Ford's 560-acre plant in Dagenham, England: "They're making major profits. Now we're asking for something...
...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 bubble- bath brands were sold in 1977, physicians and pharmacists are very familiar with the company's 100 drugs, from antibiotics to anticholesterol pills. Merck's sales surged by 23% in 1987, to a record $5.1 billion, as profits ballooned...
That is especially true in the risky, cutthroat pharmaceutical business, where the typical product costs about $125 million to bring from the laboratory to the pharmacy shelf. Although drug patents can last up to 22 years, firms must test a product for several years after a patent filing to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration. That gives competitors, who have access to the filing, time to tinker with a patented compound and make it different enough to qualify as a new drug. Growing, too, are the ranks of generic-drug producers who do little or no research...
...behind all the puffery are genuine breakthroughs. When Vagelos joined Merck, the company was slogging through a slump in its product development. But he helped start a huge campaign that brought on board hundreds of new research scientists. That talent hunt continues to this day. As chief executive, Vagelos makes surprise visits to his divisions, asking managers, "Whom have you recruited recently? How are they coming along?" Another hallmark of the Vagelos style: a penchant for promoting promising employees several rungs at a time, building creative tension in the ranks...