SUPPORT BY INDUSTRY 



better informed as to the hazards of hiring away professors — 

 one of these hazards is that he may slip out of the laboratory 

 and end up as Chairman of the Board. I know one company 

 that is not likely to take that risk again! In any case, the present 

 trend is toward hiring the professors as consultants, thus gain- 

 ing the advantage of more contact between basic and applied 

 research without taking the professor away from his main job. 

 It is interesting to note in this connection that the pharmaceut- 

 ical industry recently recommended that the increasing govern- 

 ment-financed basic research in that field be channeled into 

 universities and other nonprofit institutions, rather than into 

 the industry laboratories/ 



When we look at the complete picture, therefore, the 

 criticism of industry as a whole for failing to give adequate 

 support to basic research seems less justified than might at first 

 appear. Certainly, many of our large companies and labora- 

 tories are doing all that organizations with the obligation to 

 make a profit can reasonably justify, and the real task is to 

 awaken others in industry to a similar appreciation of the facts 

 of the situation. This is, as I have said, one of the main reasons 

 for symposiums such as this, and particularly for the wide 

 dissemination of these papers among those who need them most. 



* Official action taken at meeting January 8, 1959, by the Board of 

 Directors of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. 



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