The Challenge of Life Biomedical Progress and Human Values
In the autumn of 1971 F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. Ltd in Basel celebrated their 75th anniversary. The company was one of the first in the chemical industry to concentrate from the beginning on pharmaceuticals. Step by step new activi ties were taken u
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The Challenge of Life Biomedical Progress and Human Values
Roche Anniversary Symposium Chairman: The Lord Todd, F.R. S. Basel, Switzerland, 31 August to 3 September 1971
Editors: Robert M. Kunz and Hans Fehr
1972 Springer Basel AG
Editorial Committee: Renée Baumgartner Helga Gerster Colette Kapp-Schwoerer Walter K. Lindenmann Hans R. Roth
Photographers:
Urs Schachenmann Hans Sigg
© Springer Basel AG 1972 Originally published by Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel and Stuttgart in 1972 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1972 ISBN 978-3-0348-5864-9 (eBook) ISBN 978-3-0348-5866-3 DOI 10.1007/978-3-0348-5864-9 F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. Ltd, Basel, Switzerland
The Challenge of Life Roche Anniversary Symposium
Chairman:
The Lord TODD
Moderators:
PHILIP HANDLER, RENE KONIG and JAN W ALDENSTROM
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Preface
In the autumn of 1971 F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. Ltd in Basel celebrated their 75th anniversary. The company was one of the first in the chemical industry to concentrate from the beginning on pharmaceuticals. Step by step new activities were taken up, but all within the frontiers of biology. During the 75 years of Roche the research division has become by far the largest department in the company, with basic research assuming an increasingly important part in it. For this reason Roche cannot but feel a share of responsibility towards the many problems raised by biomedical progress. Hence, the idea of celebrating the anniversary along conventional lines could not be seriously entertained. The occasion was to show Roche at work. A special kind of work certainly, breaking away from the daily routine into the sphere offree communication with thinking people outside the purview of the company's usual tasks. Thus was born the idea of a multidisciplinary symposium with a subject which would throw open to discussion the scientific endeavours of the company in their relation to society-the human problems of biomedical progress. The Symposium was intended to provide a forum of encounter between preeminent representatives of various cultures and fields of knowledge. The dialogue promised to point the way to fresh insights and new methodology. Besides this, Roche hoped to gain guidelines for future research. The anniversary came at a time of striking changes in established structures and functions. Particularly in the field of health, we are faced with tasks of unprecedented import. As the idea took shape, the initiators gradually withdrew into the role of hosts. Roche deliberately limited its contribution to a general outline of the scope of the Symposium. The choice of the individual topics for discussion and the selection of discussion leaders and speakers were left to the active participants, who were all invited to a preparatory meeting near Geneva in November 1970, almost a year before the projected event. The Geneva presymposium will remain alive in the memory of all participants. The close personal contact which soon developed paved the way for a free and fruitful exchange of views. Three main lines of tho
