Word: genentech
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...Genentech (est. 1983 revenues: $45 million), one of the industry founders, remains the model for other gene-splicing firms. Started in 1976, the South San Francisco firm now employs 110 Ph.D.s. This year the company hopes to put on the market a human growth hormone that is said to enable abnormally small children to develop as large as normal ones. It also s expects to have two breakthrough products in human evaluation tests...
...professional life Perkins, 52, displays the same perfectionism toward a collection of-very new companies. As a founding partner of San Francisco's Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, he has since 1972 managed four venture-capital funds that have invested $80 million in 65 companies, including Genentech, a leader in genetic engineering, and Tandem Computers, a rising manufacturer of large mainframe machines. The original $200,000 that Perkins' firm put into Genentech is worth $60 million today, while its $1.5 million stake in Tandem has grown to $250 million. Like many venture capitalists, Perkins often helps run the companies...
Since Humulin has been licensed to giant Eli Lilly & Co. for production and sale as a nonprescription drug, Genentech stands to make at most 10% of any profits. Says Analyst Marilyn Hill of Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Mass.: "Royalties and fees are not going to make these companies a big success. Genentech still has to show that it can develop its marketing clout with its own products." Investors apparently agree. Although Genentech's stock ran up from $33 a share to $46 in the weeks preceding the announcement, it is well below the fantastic $89 it briefly...
Questions also remain about the miracle drug interferon. Genentech and Biogen of Switzerland have each developed a multipurpose form of the drug that is now being tested on humans and could be on the market by late 1984. So far, interferon is showing good results against a variety of noncancerous tumors but less promise against cancer. Says Biogen Chairman Dr. Walter Gilbert, a Nobel prizewinner: "The industry has proved it can make these drugs in commercial amounts. Whether they are useful against diseases like cancer and herpes, or even the common cold, depends on these medical tests...
...supporters, who expect it to reap sales of $25 billion by the year 2000. One of the most encouraging signs is the quick action by the FDA, which licensed Humulin after just five months of testing, one of the quickest approvals in the agency's history. Genentech President Robert Swanson said last week that his company expects to market a number of other new products in the next few years, including an agent that dissolves blood clots and could be useful in treating heart patients, and a human growth hormone that has successfully been tested for more than...