From Farms to Pharma

From Farms to Pharma is a highly interesting book about Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry, from the point of view of a sympathetic insider.

This is a highly useful book as it offers the reader a rare insight into this vitally important industry.

It is a rare book as, all too often, books with "Pharma" in the title are fairly hysterical tomes written from the perspective of people who have spent decades decrying every aspect of "Big Pharma."

From Farms to Pharma is written by industry insider Ron Stark.

Ron takes us on a very illuminating journey through a lifetime spent working in medical research. He spent a large proportion of his working life employed as an industrial troubleshooter.

The book is filled with the wit, good humour and humanity of Ron, who relates a number of stories, some amusing, some tragic, some fairly heroic as researchers battled to come up with solutions for diseases that afflict mankind.

The book is populated with a wide range of characters, some flawed, some saintly and some who, like most of humanity, are both flawed and saintly, sometimes in equal measure.

One of the most moving stories is that of the dreadful typhoid fever epidemic that struck the city of Aberdeen in May 1964.

It tells the story of how the epidemic started, how its source was traced and how the several hundred victims were treated.

It also covers a number of interesting cases where problems were caused by drugs and other cases where physicians had chosen to blame drugs for causing problems within their patient that, it transpired, really had other causes.

The book is published by Matador on 28th June and will cost £9.99. It is highly recommended to anyone who plans to working in the field of pharmaceuticals, is a doctor or a medical student or the general reader who wants to look at all sides of a situation.