Genentech

The Beginnings of Biotech

De: Sally Smith Hughes

Narrado por: Suzie Althens

In the fall of 1980, Genentech, Inc., a little-known California genetic engineering company, became the overnight darling of Wall Street, raising over $38 million in its initial public stock offering. Lacking marketed products or substantial profit, the firm nonetheless saw its share price escalate from $35 to $89 in the first few minutes of trading. Coming at a time of economic recession and declining technological competitiveness in the United States, the event ignited a period of speculative frenzy over biotechnology as a revolutionary means for creating new and better kinds of pharmaceuticals, untold profit, and a possible solution to national economic malaise.

Drawing from an unparalleled collection of interviews with early biotech players, Sally Smith Hughes offers the first book-length history of this pioneering company. Hughes provides intimate portraits of the people significant to Genentech's science and business, including cofounders Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson, and in doing so sheds new light on how personality affects the growth of science. By placing Genentech's founders, followers, opponents, victims, and beneficiaries in context, Hughes also demonstrates how science interacts with commercial and legal interests and university research, and with government regulation, venture capital, and commercial profits.

©2011 The University of Chicago (P)2021 Tantor

A reasonable listen

An intriguing start to a story about a pioneering company that defined biopharma. Unfortunately, it falls short on the most interesting aspects of the drug targets they developed and the challenges they faced. The story abruptly stops after Genentech’s IPO and doesn’t discuss the subsequent impact they had on the sector.

informative

an informative read about Genentech and how it launched the biotech revolution. I'm glad I read it and I learned much. but it was hard to get started and build reading momentum--it started off quite dry.

Shallow and lifeless

Reads like it was written by a freshman business student. “They made something, they patented it, and then they partnered.”