Nathan Vardi has crafted an intimate and gripping account of the rollercoaster journey a new drug takes from molecule to potential medicine. For Blood and Money is a page-turner, chock full of character and intrigue. With classic journalistic shoe leather, Vardi delivers the inside story of biotech, bringing readers into the bare-knuckle backroom of biopharma start-ups where the stakes couldn't be higher--especially for patients.--Charles Graeber, New York Times best-selling author of The Good Nurse and The Breakthrough Nathan Vardi tells an exciting story of the relentless focus and extraordinary effort required to bring a breakthrough to patients, providing rich detail on the delicate interplay between researchers, biopharma, investors, and regulators that leads to medical innovation.--Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer A harrowing and improbable story of two rival blockbuster cancer drugs that takes us deep inside the coiling miasma of high-stakes modern medicine, where obsessive scientists, doctors, investors, middlemen, billionaires, and giant corporations alternate, collaborate, and clash to accomplish what none of them could possibly do on their own. Meticulously researched, vividly told, Nathan Vardi's tale presents a detailed and compelling portrait of the ferocious but indispensable world that is 21st century pharmaceutical research, development, and marketing.--Barry Werth, author of The Billion Dollar Molecule and The Antidote For Blood and Money is a blast. Nathan Vardi shows the roles that greed, fear, determination, and, above all, ambition play in developing billion-dollar drugs.
A ton of fun and full of insight.--Gregory Zuckerman, author of A Shot to Save the World A must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Wall Street investment leads to the products on pharmacy shelves. Nathan Vardi brings a deep knowledge and economical storytelling to the clash between two billionaires behind two cancer drugs and shows real humanity in describing the scientists who were often caught in the middle.--Matthew Herper, Senior Writer, STAT.