Genentech was founded by an unemployed 29 year old in 1976, less than a week after Apple was founded. It went public in 1980, a few months before Apple.pic.twitter.com/sqVqfsgzVL
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Genentech was founded by an unemployed 29 year old in 1976, less than a week after Apple was founded. It went public in 1980, a few months before Apple.pic.twitter.com/sqVqfsgzVL
Bob Swanson, Genentech's founding CEO, did for biotech what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did for the computer industry.pic.twitter.com/c4ItFI2S6K
To get a sense of how Bob's mind worked, I've highlighted some quotes below. These mostly come from this fascinating interview with Bob, conducted by Sally Smith Hughes: https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt9c6006s1&query=&brand=oac4 …
Early Genentech focused on systematically eliminating risk. Eliminating risk creates value. As Josh Wolfe says, “Entrepreneurs aren’t risk takers. They’re risk killers”pic.twitter.com/qvL7x7juHF
Bob’s strategy for building a profitable pharma company: raise money, eliminate risk and create value, raise more money, create more value.pic.twitter.com/yvUYfLSHHn
Fundamentally, Bob focused on creating value for patients. In the words of Paul Graham, “make something people want”.pic.twitter.com/xl2BIHvWRp
Genentech took big risks, but its rigorous, science-first culture was essential to figuring out which risks were worth taking.pic.twitter.com/AE3cPoM0Ja
Bob and his cofounder, Herb Boyer, knew that the best way to create value was through great science. They focused on finding and empowering the best young scientists in the world.pic.twitter.com/Mo0AS6tWAn
Genentech’s ambition was key to recruiting the best people. As Sam Altman says, “It’s easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup. People want to be part of something exciting and feel that their work matters.”pic.twitter.com/87iC9TDagw
Genentech was building perhaps the most powerful platform in biotech history. But they focused on products, not the platform -- if they made great products for patients, the platform would follow.pic.twitter.com/RZpmtL6TvF
But before jumping into expensive product development, they focused on addressing a key technical risk: could bacteria express a human gene?pic.twitter.com/ZpW99WZWiq
They focused on "killer experiments" to address risks, robustly, quickly and cheaply.pic.twitter.com/rdBM8ZYNiD
Genentech's first product was insulin: there was a validated unmet need for safer, cheaper insulin; the product was technically feasible (small peptide vs. more complex protein); the economics were good; it was patentable.pic.twitter.com/QMce4CPoAV
Another benefit of insulin as an initial product was that insulin was known to improve clinical outcomes for people with diabetes. Low clinical risk + best-in-class product = great initial indication for new techpic.twitter.com/KQ9aCcopIG
The short path to human proof of concept for insulin was also attractive: short studies, objective endpoints, and an approvable biomarker endpoint with high correlation to clinical outcomes.pic.twitter.com/5Tl0A2W8YV
The only downside of insulin as an initial product was that Genentech couldn't market it themselves. They had to partner with a big company for commercialization. For startups, low-prevalence indications with high unmet need > highly prevalent indicationspic.twitter.com/0U07yBSpeC
Genentech's goal was always to develop and sell their own products, rather than just licensing projects to pharma. The value of a drug increases exponentially as it advances through the development process.pic.twitter.com/XAemzvA2h7
Financing risk is always huge for pre-revenue biopharma companies, especially for those that want to sell their own products. Bob was acutely aware of this and focused on profitability. He partnered non-core assets to fund work on core products.pic.twitter.com/xRSnK8Ix2w
Today the idea of a profitable biopharma startup almost seems ridiculous. It is incredible that Bob had profitability as a goal -- and achieved it. Perhaps that's why Genentech was able to survive as an independent company for so long.
Genentech's focus on capital efficiency was another key tactic that reduced financing risk and let them stay independent.pic.twitter.com/WO9NKuaM0Y
But perhaps the most important thing Bob brought to Genentech was his determination, optimism and ability to get things done. Those traits more than made up for his lack of experience.pic.twitter.com/1Ic3HOC2gt
All of the quotes above are from Sally Smith Hughes' interviews from Berkeley's Bancroft Library Oral History Center. https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/biosci/oh_list.html …
If you want to learn more, read Sally Smith Hughes' book Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech. It's a quick and engaging read. You can also check out an article I wrote with a bit more context on the above quotes:https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/lessons-from-genentech.html …
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