Genentech, Sally Smith Hughes
Genentech, Sally Smith Hughes
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Genentech
The Beginnings of Biotech

Author: Sally Smith Hughes

Narrator: Suzie Althens

Unabridged: 7 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/28/2021

Synopsis

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.

About Sally Smith Hughes

Sally Smith Hughes is a historian of science at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Virus: A History of the Concept and the creator of an extensive collection of in-depth oral histories on bioscience, biomedicine, and biotechnology.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Richard on May 02, 2020

A great history of Genentech's evolution from underfunded company with no office to IPO. Full of interesting details like: * In the early days, they ran "ho-ho" beer happy hours, which were more characteristic of Silicon Valley free-wheeling startups than pharmaceutical companies of the day. * Genente......more

Goodreads review by Herve on January 12, 2016

My reading of Genentech follows my reading Science lessons abotu Amgen and this is a review I published elsewhere (my blog) os apologies for any inconsistency... I have to admit I had never heard of the Bancroft Library’s website ([URL not allowed]) for the Program in Bioscienc......more

Goodreads review by Mark on October 03, 2018

I found "Genentech" to be informative and interesting and extremely well-written. I feel like Sally Hughes did a great job of contextualizing Genentech's early founding story, providing valuable insight on the political, social, academic, and legal/patent environment at the time. I feel like the boo......more

Goodreads review by Justin on February 13, 2021

I personally enjoyed reading this book. I learned about the stories of the people behind Genentech. I am inspired by the pioneers of the biotech industry and am thankful to Boyer and Swanson for paving the way for others to follow. This book has changed the way I thought about biotechnology and has......more

Goodreads review by Adriyana on January 02, 2024

This is the biography of the world's first biotechnology company Genentech. It was founded in 1976 by venture capitalist Robert A. Swanson and biochemist Herbert Boyer. At times the book was a bit too hard to read trough - was boring, with too many names or too technological language. The book start......more

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