Today, biotech companies are synonymous with high-risk, high-reward research that advances the healthcare and wallets of countries with advanced economies. However, fifty years ago, this type of company did not exist. There were university research labs, and there were big corporations. No startup companies sought to translate the small experiments into lucrative business ventures. Out of Silicon Valley, California, Genentech was one of the first to do so. They translated work in recombinant DNA technology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) into widespread use and launched a multi-million-dollar company in the process.
Having grown up in an environment where universities are expected to collaborate with infrastructure, I find high walls between academe and industry difficult to fathom. Yet in the 1970s, high walls were the norm. The founders of Genentech faced professional ostracism because of their corporate focus even though they maintained their university research agenda as well. The university culture was highly suspicious of their conflicts of interest.
Genentech’s pioneering policies attracted leading academics researchers interested in pursuing research and proving the academic establishment wrong. Although most early workers received company shares, financial incentives did not seem to be a driving force in biotech’s early days. Why would scientists be interested in company stock? Of course, if you put a variety of people in a room and force them to work together, they will learn from each other’s habits and collective ethos. Such transpired with the businesspeople and the scientists. They learned and contributed enough that they started an economic movement that continues nearly fifty years later.
Those interested in biotechnology and translational research work will recognize the outlines of this story in other stories common in their fields. Inevitable conflicts between business and science are repeated to this day. Should financial posturing be preferred over rigorous science? If so – and this is usually the real rub – how exactly? Learning from the early birds that set the initial bar can help decide today’s decision-makers. This story also inspires those of us embedded and entrenched in work to persevere – not a small feat. After all, if Genentech can succeed, can’t we?
Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech
By Sally Smith Hughes
Narrated by Suzie Althens
Text copyright (c) 2013
University of Chicago Press
Audio copyright (c) 2021
Tantor Media
ASIN B09GCLKJQT
Length: 7:12
Genre: Biotechnology, Business
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