For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug

A gripping business narrative and scientific thriller about what it takes to bring a wonder drug to market—and save countless lives.

For Blood and Money tells the little-known story of how an upstart biotechnology company created a one-in-a-million cancer drug, and how the core team—denied their share of the profits—went and did it again. In this epic saga of money and science, veteran financial journalist Nathan Vardi explains how the invention of two of the biggest cancer drugs in history became (for their backers) two of the greatest Wall Street bets of all time.

In the multibillion-dollar business of biotech, where pharmaceutical companies, the government, hedge funds, and venture capitalists have spent billions on funding, experimentation, and treatments, a single molecule can stop cancer in its tracks—and make the people who find that rare molecule astonishingly rich. For Blood and Money follows a small team at a...