It was the kind of detail that pharmaceutical executives at $20 billion companies don't typically bother pointing out. But Jacky Vonderscher, vice president and head of drug development at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, paused while guiding a visitor through the company's spanking new research labs to sing the praises ofa hallway. True, it was open, airy, and exceptionally commodious, but all the same, it was a hallway, running through the institute's oncology and infectious-disease research laboratories. No one was likely to discover a new blockbuster drug in this hallway, any more than a scientist was likely to think up a cure for cancer while dreamily staring out the tall windows lining nearby labs.

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