BIG PHARMA COMES TO TOWN: When in Cambridge, major drug companies play by Cambridge rules in a QUEST FOR BREAKTHROUGHS

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., has always been a diverse community. It’s at once the “fair city” of Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the regular-guy hosts of “Car Talk” on National Public Radio, and an elite academic haven where the red brick and ivy of Harvard University coexist with the modern architectural sprawl of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since the 1980s, the area’s mix of academia and medical institutions, including Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, has created a breeding ground for biopharmaceutical companies. Industry leaders Genzyme, Biogen Idec, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals settled among the schools and old manufacturing buildings throughout the city. More recently, Pfizer and Novartis bought an old Model-A Ford tire plant and a New England Confectionery Co. candy factory, respectively. Merck & Co. set up labs across the river in Boston, AstraZeneca moved to nearby Waltham, and Wyeth purchased Genetics Institute, which had built a sizable research campus in the north end of Cambri...