Driving down Mass Ave through Central Square in Cambridge, I had an odd thought as I passed by a certain large, laboratory building. To those who may not know it, the international pharma company Novartis has some hefty research space in Cambridge in both Central and Kendall Squares. The funny thing about their lab space in Central is that it sits in what was once a candy factory, Necco Candy to be exact, the people that make Necco wafers and those great multicolored Valentine’s Day heart candies (Sweethearts) that have different inscriptions on them like ”Call me” or ”I gave you VD”. I may have remembered that last one wrong, but anyway, is it just me or is it somewhat ironic to have a drug company inside of a former candy factory?

Maybe it’s brilliant. After all, they may share some common goals. Each wants people to eat lots of tiny, sugar-coated blobs. The chemistry of what’s inside the blobs differs (hopefully), but I feel that a certain confluence between pharmaceuticals and candy has come about in recent years, at least as far as marketing strategy goes. Ads for both show happy people, with better lives, enjoying the human experience as a direct result of consuming the featured product. We live in a society where many seem to think that a pill likely exists for every complaint, that somehow, every disease or injury could be immediately healed if only people weren’t so miserly in handing out the cures, that money is all you need. Money means access and somewhere, the wealthy can shop for treatments like a kid in a candy store. This attitude makes explaining the complexities, timeframes, and intent of conducting research a difficult task. Anyhow, I digress from my theme.

I would certainly not be the first person to have observed the calming, anti-psychotic effect that chocolate has on certain people (i.e. “If you had eaten that last brownie, I would have killed you…”). At any rate, it is my hope that the union of real candy and street candy will at least yield improvements in both the sugar coating present on the less tasty drugs not to mention a better experience overall for those research subjects assigned to the placebo category. Call me…