Roy Vagelos

Former Chairman, Regeneron

Search every verified Roy Vagelos interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Roy Vagelos, former CEO and chairman of Merck and former chairman of Regeneron, has continued to speak publicly about his career and the pharmaceutical industry. In a September 2024 interview, he discussed Merck's decision in 1987 to donate ivermectin free of charge to treat river blindness, stating that the company made the drug available to anyone in the world for as long as it was required. He also described a program in which Merck trained Chinese scientists and engineers to manufacture a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, with the company making no profit from the effort. Vagelos has also commented on drug pricing, saying in a 2017 forum that he is not opposed to high prices for drugs that provide significant value, such as a hepatitis C cure, but criticized price increases after launch, citing Gleevec's rise from $26,000 to $146,000. He has advocated for transparency in pricing and for price increases to be tied to inflation. Vagelos has also reflected on his approach to drug discovery, emphasizing the importance of understanding basic science and disease mechanisms. In a 2020 fireside chat, he said that scientific leaders should find intersections where new science reveals something about a disease and technology exists to affect that molecule. He noted that during his tenure at Merck, he was closely involved with research even as CEO, and that the company's decision to stop clinical studies of lovastatin for two years after a rumor of tumors in animals was driven by a commitment to patient safety. Vagelos has also discussed the role of financial incentives in the industry, stating in a 2020 interview that while profit is important, the industry must be careful not to reduce pricing to a point where people lose interest in drug development.