Vertex Pharmaceuticals is an American biopharmaceutical company in the business of researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing small molecule drugs for human patients with serious diseases. The company was founded by Joshua S. Boger in 1989 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Some of the diseases impacted by its therapies include cystic fibrosis; infectious diseases, including viral infections, such as influenza and bacterial infections; rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and neurological disorders. The company was one of the early pioneers of rational drug design rather than combinatorial chemistry.