The notion of using receptor technology for drug research was already attracting the pharmaceutical giants.

They understand the risks of trying to become a pharmaceutical giant.

While biotech companies are more independent now than ever before, they and the pharmaceutical giants have long had a symbiotic relationship.

The pharmaceutical giant said it earned $556 million, or $1.44 a share, on sales of $2.1 billion in the April to June period.

But for a small company, a crumb from a pharmaceutical giant can look like a feast.

It requires the kind of funding that only the pharmaceutical giants and other mainstream interests can afford.

First, at 65, he had to quit as chairman and chief executive of Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, in 1994.

Did that mean the government had actually switched sides in the debate over protecting the pharmaceutical giants?

And it quickly learned that the pharmaceutical giants had little interest in taking on a drug with such a tainted past.

Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, had $15 billion as of 2003.