'Breakthrough – The Quest for Life-Changing Medicines,' by Dr. William Pao, Chronicles the World of Drug Discovery

Meet the drug hunters – obsessed scientists and clinicians navigating the labyrinthine of discovery & development – as they tackle humanity's medical mysteries

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, February 10, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- What does it take to create a new medicine? The trajectory from laboratory to your neighborhood chemist rarely runs in a straight line. Eureka moments come few and far between. Drug discoveries demand leaps of imagination and lateral thinking, the accumulation of the knowledge and expertise of many, and – nearly always – a hefty dollop of luck.

“Breakthrough – The Quest for Life-Changing Medicines,” by Dr. William Pao, charts the discovery of eight revolutionary drugs as it spotlights the innovative heart of medical science and celebrates the tireless work of scientists fighting for better medical care. Behind each of these medicines – whether a potentially life-saving new treatment for cancer, or something as commonplace as paracetamol – there stands a cast of characters and a wealth of stories.

To develop a new drug scientists must decode nature – the biological secrets of life that have evolved over millions of years. They must identify and characterize a disease, understand scientifically why it occurs, and then find a way to alter its course by employing a particular molecule that will impact the disease without incurring serious side effects.

Breakthrough, with a foreword by Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate in Medicine (1989), spotlights hundreds of heroic drug hunters through these eight chapters:

• The World’s Most Common Rare Disease –Spinal muscular atrophy
• Lung Cancer in Non-Smokers
• Pain – the Universal Affliction
• The Royal Disease – Hemophilia A
• Therapy-resistant Breast Cancer
• The Virus that Stopped the World – Covid-19
• The Dawn of Gene Editing – Sickle Cell Disease & Beta Thalassaemia
• Viral Geometry – HIV/AIDS
• How to Innovate – Insights from the Frontline of Drug Development

Documenting these fascinating journeys, Breakthrough grants a privileged look at the stories behind the medicines that improve – and very often save – our lives. In the final chapter Pao shows how a culture of innovation can apply more widely to technology, business, careers, politics and life.
The author: Wiilliam Pao, MD PhD, is a physician-scientist whose career has spanned academia, industry and biotech. Motivated by his father’s death from cancer when he was 13, he started his career as a thoracic oncologist, lab researcher and clinical investigator at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and then Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where he also served as the Division Chief of Hematology/Oncology. Previously Chief Development Officer for Pfizer, and prior to that, Head of the Roche Pharma Research & Early Development unit, he oversaw the discovery and development of portfolios of new molecular entities, many of which have been approved to treat a variety of diseases, from cancer to rare blood disorders. He has advised numerous professional associations, served on the editorial boards of prestigious medical research journals, and received multiple awards and recognitions. He is currently CEO and co-founder of a cancer biotechnology company.

Published by Oneworld

Praise for "Breakthrough – The Quest for Life-Changing Medicines"

“This celebration of human ingenuity shines a light on the relentless resilience behind medical breakthroughs that have transformed patients’ lives. Utterly compelling.” Dame Kate Bingham, former Chair of UK Vaccine Taskforce and author of The Long Shot

Ronald Fuchs
RF Communications
+1 865-203-8035
ron.fuchs@outlook.com