Peer Response on Posts Concerning the Genentech Story

Reply 3 classmates of their discussion post, each classmate have to reply at least 100 words
Discussion title: You have three options for this discussion prompt. Feel free to choose one or all to respond to when writing your primary post. They are the following: 1) in what ways did Stan Cohen and Herb Boyer benefit from a climate of innovation of the Bay Area ; 2) if you were to found your own biotech company, what lessons did you learn from the Genentech story that might help you?; and 3) what were the key moments that stood out to you in the founding of Genentech?
Classmate 1: Discussion prompt # 2. If you were to found your own biotech company, what lessons did you learn from the Genentech story that may help you?
Reference to The Gene: An Intimate History written by Siddhartha Mukherjee. 236-252.
Additional Resource www(dot)gene(dot)com/stories/pioneering-partnerships
It would be redundant in today's society to be obsessed with biotechnology without seeking profits, and the history of Genentech is an astronomical feat and indicative of present day biotech companies' approach to be professional and entrepreneurial as this leader. A foot in the door could possibly be the best chance at exposure to the enigmatic biomanufacturing industry. The resources available within any biotech company is able to present their mission statement and compliance to innovate. This includes the spectrum of bringing onboard highly talented researchers to entry level employees to reach goals and capitalize on potential through partnerships. The Genentech and Eli Lilly partnership were able to test and market their insulin from the recombinant DNA development of insulin also known as humulin. A recommendation for future founders is take from the big corporations and stake your claim in the industry as appropriate.Prompt #1
If Cohen and Boyer were able to attend a professional conference about the safety of recombinant techniques, then they were only miles apart from other top dog professionals setting the standards. When both were to establish grounds in the industrial city of South San Francisco, they were placed near an airport and a field of garbage. They have both contributed vast amounts and made the Bay Area a marketplace of biotechnology. This timeline beginning with Asilomar.
Prompt #3
These guys were never at home. Who ever wanted to take part in making the next best innovation competed with everyone. The history from this excerpt "In May of 1974, Cohen's lab had published the "frog prince" experiment - the transfer of a frog gene into a bacterial cell." During this year of 1974, President Nixon resigned from office because of the Watergate scandal. To break the law in the 1970's is a common thing not at all sabotage. I missed out on explaining how Genentech did their work. I left out a lot of names crucial to their discovery of recombinant insulin. There was even a competitor who had made rat insulin because of a contamination issue.
Classmate 2:What were the key moments that stood out to you in the founding of Genentech?There were several key moments that stood out to me in the creation of Genentech. Some being the countless adversities faced to synthesize insulin, Robert Swanson ability to take risk, and Genentech becoming a publicly traded company.
I was unaware that before the 1970’s insulin was extracted from the pancreases from various animals. A very tedious and costly process. Boyer’s ambition to synthesize insulin was honestly a genius idea. Not just in a medical sense but also in a business sense. Seeing how rough of a road it was to manipulate the bacteria to produce the Somatostatin protein/ Hormone was mind blowing. I see why Boyer’s solution was to sew the two proteins together. Boyer was relentless in his pursuits to make this idea work. Going as far as to hiring multiple scientists in various regions to assist in the project of producing the Somatostatin protein. In 1978 the Genentech team was successful in chaining the proteins together. They have finally synthesized insulin. Now the team faces yet another road of adversities, the legalities of the patent. It took another 4 year until Genentech was able to patent the method and techniques to synthesize insulin.
Swanson’s ambition to start a Biotech company with no scientific education is almost mind boggling. The fact that he had several failed businesses beforehand makes it even more irrational. That level of crazy ambition is almost inspiring and disturbing at the same time. Every time there was a failed attempt to produce the Somatostatin protein Swanson would have to go to the E.R. reading about his continuous health problems sparks the question of how much this was worth it? He died at the age of 52. Had several trips to the hospital, all of which seem directly related to the Genentech project.
Reading about Genentech going public on the stock market definitely grabbed my attention. Them receiving 35 million dollars in capital in just a few hours after going public was impressive, and; The progressive growth from 8 million in 1983 to 700 million in 1998 is massive. Genentech went from barely hanging on to making a handful of people millionaires overnight.
Classmate 3:Prompt #2: if you were to found your own biotech company, what lessons did you learn from the Genentech story that might help you?
There were multiple lessons learned from the Genentech story that was beneficial to anyone who wants to found their own biotech company. One of the lessons I learned that stood out to me most was to be ambitious and determined when starting your own biotech company as how Robert Swanson was when co-founding Genentech.
Robert Swanson was determined to invest his time on a new technology that he felt strongly about which was the "recombinant DNA." In the beginning of his journey he had made a list of all the people he thought was important in the gene-cloning field. He then went down his list alphabetically and called each person himself. He was going down his list as he was constantly getting turned down, but Swanson swallowed his pride and kept going. This shows how ambitious Swanson was, by continuing to keep trying and moving forward. Then he eventually contacted Herb Boyer who by chance one morning had picked up his call. From there Swanson was offered ten minutes of Boyer's time and the rest was Genentech's history.
The lessons learned from Swanson from the "Genentech Story" was to stay determined. Although he had multiple investments that were failures, he never gave up and focused on his goals. This is crucial when starting your own successful biotech company, especially when there are plenty of obstacles and dead ends in your research.