{"id":4303,"date":"2017-03-24T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T00:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/?p=4303"},"modified":"2017-03-24T17:56:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T17:56:12","slug":"my-biotech-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/2017\/03\/24\/my-biotech-heroes","title":{"rendered":"My Biotech Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hero\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A friend asked me recently: \u00a0If Gates, Jobs, Bezos and Zuckerberg are among the heroes of the IT revolution, who are the heroes of biotech?<\/p>\n

And I responded:<\/p>\n

Bob Swanson<\/strong>, who taught us how to dream and how to turn the dream into reality.<\/p>\n

George Rathmann<\/strong><\/a>, who showed us what it is to have character, how to inspire and empower individuals and how to develop products with a meaningful impact on human health.<\/p>\n

Hubert Schoemaker<\/strong>, who never gave up and showed us how to keep overcoming obstacles until we succeed.<\/p>\n

Henri Termeer<\/strong><\/a>, who showed us how to build a business by treating rare diseases, in the process creating a new pricing paradigm but making sure no patient was left untreated because of financial hardship.<\/p>\n

Stan Crooke<\/strong><\/a>, who, in creating a new therapeutic modality with antisense oligonucleotides, showed us that great accomplishments require defiance and life-long commitment.<\/p>\n

Bill Rastetter<\/strong>, who gave us the first meaningful therapeutic antibody, but after his success, instead of resting on his laurels, kept on creating and contributing.<\/p>\n

Art Levinson and Sue Desmond-Hellmann<\/strong>, who showed how scientific leadership can make a difference and built Genentech into the greatest biotech company in the history of the industry.<\/p>\n

Fred Frank and Mary Tanner<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0<\/strong>who taught us how large pharma thought and brought Wall Street legitimacy to the sector by committing the might of legendary Lehman Brothers behind the young companies.<\/p>\n

Peter Drake, Linda Miller, Teena Lerner, Denise Gilbert, Monte Pitt and Stu Weisbrod, <\/strong>who taught us how to think about biotech stocks.<\/p>\n

Roy Vagelos<\/strong>, who laid the foundations of how an ethical pharmaceutical company should behave and inspired all of us in biotech.<\/p>\n

Max Link<\/strong>, the first pharma CEO with a genuine appreciation of biotech, who reached out and sought to access innovation among the young companies in the sector.<\/p>\n

Dan Vasella<\/strong>, who took Max\u2019s vision a step further and, in setting up the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, catalyzed the transformation of the Boston area from a biotech hub to the global leader in biopharma research.<\/p>\n

Len Schleifer <\/strong>and George Yancopoulos<\/strong><\/a>, who showed us how to lead with science and built a great company in their unique and uncompromising way.<\/p>\n

Craig Venter<\/strong>, who almost singlehandedly laid the foundation of genomics-based drug discovery by being the driving force behind the sequencing of the human genome.<\/p>\n

Marc Levin<\/strong>, who legitimized genomics-based research initiatives by building Millennium into a great biopharma company.<\/p>\n

Noubar Afeyan<\/strong>, who has been driving relentlessly the formation of science-driven companies in spite of ever shifting moods and paradigms in the financial community.<\/p>\n

John Martin<\/strong>, who showed how scientific judgment and clinical development acumen can create great drugs. He helped turn AIDS into a manageable chronic condition and offered cures for Hep C infection.<\/p>\n

Joshua Lederberg<\/strong>, Phil Sharp<\/strong>, Bob Langer<\/strong>, George Church <\/strong>and David Baltimore<\/strong><\/a>, who, with their exquisite scientific insights, have founded several outstanding companies and have offered unparalleled wisdom as scientific advisors and board members to small and large companies alike.<\/p>\n

Marc Tessier-Lavigne<\/strong>, who crossed the industry-academia divide better than anyone by focusing on the best parts of each world, all with the common aim of improving the human condition.<\/p>\n

Some have been my friends.\u00a0 All are my heroes.<\/p>\n

Ravi<\/a>, thanks for asking.<\/p>\n

Stelios Papadopoulos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend asked me recently: \u00a0If Gates, Jobs, Bezos and Zuckerberg are among the heroes of the IT revolution, who are the heroes of biotech?  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-rounders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/tradesecrets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}