Goodreads asked Daniel Gerard Welch:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Daniel Gerard Welch I wrote Race for the Mind for several reasons. First, I minored in English
Literature in college and always enjoyed reading fine prose. While I would
never dream of counting Race for the Mind among those works, I wanted
to attempt to write a competent novel of which I could be sufficiently
proud to publish. Second, I have spent 40 years in the business of making
medicines and during this time, I was often frustrated by how poorly
and one sidedly the pharmaceutical industry was treated by the media. Sometimes, the criticism is absolutely justified and I join in that criticism. I
thought – perhaps naively hoped – that I could engage an audience in a medical thriller and while telling the story, stealthily educate the general public about another side of the industry. That other side would be the one of terrible odds, horrendous sums of money and the stunningly long process of developing a new drug and also, of the courageous and dedicated men and women who devote their entire lives to helping people they have never met live a longer and better quality life. Last but not least, my family like so many other families has been visited several times by Alzheimer’s disease.

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