The story
History
Vertex was founded in 1989 by Joshua Boger and Kevin J. Kinsella to "transform the way serious diseases are treated".
The company's beginnings were profiled by Barry Werth in the 1994 book The Billion-Dollar Molecule. His 2014 book, The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma, chronicled the company's subsequent development over the next two decades.
By 2004, its product pipeline focused on viral infections, inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, and cancer.
In 2009, the company had about 1,800 employees, including 1,200 in the Boston area. By 2019 there were about 2,500 employees.
Since late 2011, Vertex has ranked among the top 15 best-performing companies on the Standard & Poor's 500. Vertex shares increased 250 percent in the same period. In January 2014, Vertex completed its move from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Boston, Massachusetts, and took residence in a new, $800 million complex. Located on the South Boston waterfront, it marked the first time in the company's history that all of the roughly 1,200 Vertex employees in the Greater Boston area worked together.
On 23 January 2019, Ian Smith, the COO and interim CFO of Vertex, was terminated from his position for undisclosed personal behavior that violated established company code of conduct rules. In June of the same year, Vertex announced it would acquire Exonics Therapeutics for up to $1 billion and collaborate with CRISPR Therapeutics, boosting its development of treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and myotonic dystrophy type 1.
In September 2019 the company announced it would acquire Semma Therapeutics for $950 million in cash. Semma Therapeutics created a "small, implantable device that holds millions of replacement beta cells, letting glucose and insulin through but keeping immune cells out."
On 1 April 2020, Reshma Kewalramani, then the chief medical officer, became president and chief executive officer of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Former CEO and president Jeffrey Leiden transitioned to the role of executive chairman of the board of directors, as of 1 April 2020. Leiden was to serve as executive chairman until April 2023, although as of September 2024 he remained in that post.
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In July 2022, the business announced it would acquire ViaCyte, Inc. for $320 million.
In April 2024, it was announced Vertex had agreed to acquire the Seattle-headquartered clinical stage biopharmaceutical company Alpine Immune Sciences for $4.9 billion.
In July 2026, Vertex agreed to acquire Crinetics Pharmaceuticals for $10 billion, one of the largest pharma deals of the year.
Historical
Telaprevir
In 2014, Vertex discontinued telaprevir. In May 2011, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the drug telaprevir (Incivek) as an oral treatment for hepatitis C. Development and commercialization of telaprevir was shared with Johnson & Johnson for European distribution and Mitsubishi for Asia. Telaprevir is a protease inhibitor.
From Wikipedia’s article on Vertex Pharmaceuticals, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8