“Boger knew that stories have to be accessible and that what investors want most from them is affirmation, so he molded Vertex’s slide show not as a disquisition on science or business strategy, but as a quest. The grail—the object of the quest—was structure-based design and its transcendent prize of safer, smarter, more profitable drugs. The impetus, as always in such stories, was a combination of righteousness and greed; Vertex had a better way to discover drugs than screening and biotechnology (both of which, Boger would say, were terminally limited) and was intent on capturing the spoils of its victory whole. The rationale for the quest was the company’s unique melding of disciplines and technologies, which he represented as a kind of circular flying wedge, and its scientists, who, he noted, all came from the world’s most powerful research institutions. Harvard, naturally, was a key supporting element, as was Merck, and on the financial side, Benno Schmidt. FK-506 and immunosuppression were the story’s set pieces, meant to illustrate its correctness.”