Re-published with modifications.
This book by Sally
Smith Hughes about the biotech pioneer company Genentech is a very good read. Strangely, it starts to captivate you and then suddenly it
ends. Kind of positively disappointing.
For me as a scientist
the most revealing part of the book was the role of Bob Swanson
played in founding Genentech. He was a young man (only 28 years old),
formerly a junior partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner &
Perkins, but presently unemployed when he and UCSF scientist Herb
Boyer decided to form a partnership to commercialize recombinant DNA
technology. Bob comes across as an ideal entrepreneur. Accounts
of his vision in the potential of new DNA recombinant technology and
his tireless networking to secure initial seed money to run
Genentech's proof of principle experiments, are most fascinating.
Clearly, there would have been no Genentech without Bob
Swanson.
Other parts of the book related to science of producing first human
recombinant somatostatin, insulin and growth hormone seemed secondary
in nature, in my view. I would only highlight that at this stage of
its corporate development Genentech was basically an academia-type
company without academia-type hierarchy. Dream place to work for
scientists who wanted to show to their peers in academia that they
are scientifically "equal" and maybe a little bit "richer". Of note, after more than 30 years, Genentech, now part of Roche, still stays one of the best places to work in surveys.
The
author, however, did not discuss much about what happened to
Genentech after initial years of success. Though, admitting that it
was rescued by Roche in the early 90s suggests that it went through
some difficult periods and was not able to survive as a large
independent biotech company.
David Usharauli
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