In 2001, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the National Book Award. Here are author Andrew Solomon's opening lines:

Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair. When it comes, it degrades one's self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection. It is the aloneness within us made manifest, and it destroys not only connection to other but also the ability to be peacefully alone with oneself. Love, though it is no prophylactic against depression, is what cushions the mind and protects it from itself. Medications and psychotherapy can renew that protection, making it easier to to love and be loved., and that is why they work.

I was starting to read this book review when these words stopped me cold. Boy interrupted.

Over the course of this book we certainly learn much about Andrew Solomon. He is independently wealthy -- his father directs a profitable pharmaceutical company that produces, mirabile dictu, an anti-depressant.

from: Romancing depression - a review of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Paul R. McHugh
source: Commentary, 1 December 2001
via: HighBeam Research
Copyright © 2001 American Jewish Committee

So off I go to search up some background on Solomon's dad's company, which turns out to be Forest Laboratories, makers of the Celexa and Lexapro SSRI antidepressants. What better source than Business Week to get a feel for... well, let's say the economic impact of a National Book Award.

Today Forest Labs is a dramatically different company from what it was eight years ago. Its antidepressant, Celexa, is the fastest-growing of its class of drugs, which includes Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft; its share of new prescriptions is 17.5%. Since its U.S. launch in September, 1998, Celexa has come to account for almost 70% of Forest's overall sales--about $1.6 billion in the fiscal year that ended on Mar. 31. That's more than five times the level before Celexa was introduced. Profits have grown from about $37 million in 1998 to $338 million last year. Forest's share price has quadrupled in that time, from $20 to nearly $80. This year, the company ranks 18th on the BusinessWeek 50 list of top-performing businesses in the Standard & Poor's 500. And Solomon turned out to be the third-highest-paid U.S. executive in 2001 in BusinessWeek's annual survey, largely because he cashed in stock options worth some $147 million.

from: A CEO AND HIS SON (cover story) by Susan Berfield
source: Business Week, 27 May 27 2002
via: HighBeam Research

The following is from the 2004 Forest Labs Letter to Our Stockholders by Howard Solomon, Chairman and CEO.

Regarding our antidepressant franchise, there are now more new prescriptions written for Lexapro than for any other antidepressant, except for one, and based on existing trends, we expect that during this fiscal year, Lexapro may become the leader in new prescriptions. And that means within some months thereafter Lexapro may become the leader in total prescriptions.

	"My book is about depression. It is about the difficulties of enduring and living with depression and it's also about things that counteract depression. I would now recommend to all of my readers winning the National Book Award as an extremely efficacious antidepressant." Andrew Solomon accepting the 2001 National Book Award for nonfiction.
F O R E S T   L A B O R A T O R I E S   E A R N I N G S "well, I've got to run to keep from hiding, and I'm bound to keep on riding. and I've got one more silver dollar... but I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no, not gonna let 'em catch the Midnight Rider." ~ Allman Brothers ~