From Alchemy To Ipo: The Business Of Biotechnology

by Cynthia Robbins-roth

Overview

It is impossible to dispute the extraordinary impact biotechnology is having on our everyday lives. From Alchemy to IPO presents the dramatic story of the revolutionary and controversial business of inventing new cures and blockbuster drugs and a look at how biotech progress is generating powerful profit opportunities on all tiers of business and investment. Written by a well-known industry insider, From Alchemy to IPO addresses the coming-of-age of biotech products and companies and traces the history of biotechnology from its early inception in the '70s to today's heyday of new solutions and breakthrough treatments. It describes the amazing entrepreneurial trail of product development, novel business models, and critical trials that eventually pave the way to market, and describes advances, such as deciphering the genetic code and gene therapy, that just may lead biotech to a higher realm altogether. This is the first book to accurately record the inner workings of an industry-biotechnology-that's on the verge of living up to its monumental promise to change the world as we know it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738204826
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/12/2001
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	700,500
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

Cynthia Robbins-Roth, Ph.D., is the founder of BioVenture Consultants, which provides strategic planning and financial assessment to biotech start-ups, pharmaceutical companies, and venture-capital firms. Her biotech column appears regularly in Forbes magazine, and Forbes ASAP named her one of the top twenty-five biotech all-stars. She lives in San Mateo, California.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Biotech In The Beginning

Fourteen years ago, Betsy Patterson was a 34-year-old single mom with three kids ages 5 to 10. She was a registered nurse in oncology working on the bone marrow transplant unit, where cancer patients go to replace the marrow cells destroyed by cancer treatments. She was reminded daily just how terrible cancer could be. And then she found her own lump.

Betsy was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), a malignant growth of immune system cells that begin to form tumors in lymph nodes and throughout the body. NHL, a deadly cancer that affects an estimated 250,000 Americans, is growing at a rate second only to lung cancer. About 55,500 new patients will be diagnosed in this country this year, and 25,000 will die of the disease. There is no cure for most patients, and only 60% of patients treated with the conventional treatments-toxic radiation and chemotherapy-are still alive 5 years after diagnosis.

Because there were no other symptoms, she and her doctor adopted a "wait and see" approach. Betsy did very well for 9 years. Her lymph nodes would periodically balloon up but then disappear before she even had time to see the doctor. She remarried, and life went on.

But in 1995 things changed. Betsy enrolled in graduate nursing school-the stress level went up. Within weeks, tumor-filled lymph nodes were popping out all over her body. A biopsy showed that her lymphoma had kicked into overdrive. Her doctor suggested immediate chemotherapy, and she entered a 9-month Phase II clinical trial protocol with two drugs-fludarabine and mitoxantrone.

Chemotherapy works by killing off rapidly dividing cells, such as tumors. Unfortunately,there are lots of healthy cells in our bodies that also divide rapidly-hair follicles, the cells lining the digestive tract, the bone marrow cells that produce red blood cells to carry oxygen, and the immune system's white blood cells. During chemotherapy, your hair falls out, your mouth develops ulcers, your gut loses the ability to absorb food properly, your red cell count gets so low that there is not enough oxygen getting to your organs, and your immune system loses the ability to protect you from infection. Some drugs damage the kidneys and the heart. Most lymphoma patients die not of the direct effects of their disease, but of complications of the treatment. Chemotherapy is essentially a race to kill the tumor before the treatment kills the patient.

Betsy's doctor told her that fludarabine was not associated with extreme toxicity-he expected her to keep her hair, and her job, throughout the 9-month protocol. But to Betsy, it felt as though the treatment was killing her pretty quickly. "The chemo was very tough on my veins and I felt pain with each infusion burning up my arms. Within days of the first treatment, I was sick as a dog, with uncontrolled nausea and vomiting."

Within 3 weeks of the first treatment, Betsy got another unpleasant surprise. "The drugs were so toxic to my ovaries that they just stopped producing hormones. I went into abrupt menopause and all the wonderful things that means-constant hot flashes; loss of sexual libido; major physical changes; serious night sweats that would soak the bed, my nightgown, and my poor husband; and my periods ended. Sleep was totally disrupted for both of us. Nobody had warned me about this effect. These were major quality-of-life problems for me and for my family."

At the end of the 9-month protocol, she began replacement hormone therapy. At that point, her body felt and looked like that of a much older woman. The hormone therapy, which she will need to take for the rest of her life, helped return some of her body to normal. But some of the induced changes are permanent...

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xiii
Part 1	The Roots of Biotechnology
1	Biotech in the Beginning	3
2	Genentech: The Leader of the Pack	13
3	The Amgen Story	31
4	An Exception to Every Rule: Genzyme	43
5	The Other Biotech: Monoclonal Antibodies	48
Part 2	Biotech's Building Blocks
6	Biotech Star Wars	59
7	The Human Genome Project	67
8	Tools for Genome Studies: BioChips and Microarrays	73
9	Treating Disease at the Gene: Antisense Drugs	82
10	Gene Therapy	85
11	Following the Path of Communication: Signal Transduction	89
12	Brand-New Knees: Tissue Engineering and Cell Replacement	92
13	Building New Drugs: Combinatorial Chemistry	97
14	Agricultural Biotechnology	105
Part 3	The Business of Biotech: Product Development and Financing
15	The Drug Development Process: From Test Tubes to Patients	111
16	Speed Bumps and Brick Walls: Clinical Trial Design	124
17	Biotech Bankers	131
18	Initial Public Offerings	146
19	Creative Financing	155
20	Corporate Partners and the Urge to Merge	161
Part 4	Biotech Stocks
21	The Biotech Stock Landscape	183
22	Picking the Right Stocks	198
Appendix A	Biotech Timeline	219
Appendix B	Biotechnology-Derived Products on the Market	224
Appendix C	Biotech Web Sites and Resources	230
Appendix D	BioVenture Consultants' Biotech Stock Report	235
	Index	243

What People are Saying About This

Ron Cohen

Whether you are an investor, scientist, entrepreneur or curious layperson, run don't walk to buy Cynthia Robbins-Roth's From Alchemy to IPO. By Far the best overview of the biotechnology industry, it describes business, science, and medicine in a way that reads like an exciting novel.
—(Ron Cohen, CEO and Founder of Acorda Therapeutics)

Editorial Reviews

Cynthia Robbins-Roth has worked as a scientist for Genentech and runs a biotechnology consulting firm. In this book, Robbins-Roth draws on her experiences and contacts to offer readers "a close-up view of the thrills and chills of the biotechnology industry -- what makes it so compelling and what makes it one of the most risky sectors for investors." Along the way, she offers a guided tour through the mysteries of the drug-development process, the funding trail from venture capital to initial public offering (IPO), a tutorial on why biotech stocks behave the way they do, and a checklist for picking the companies most likely to succeed. The result is an accessible, authoritative overview of an economic sector that Robbins-Roth believes is about to enter its Golden Age.

Related Titles:

Robbins-Roth is also author of Alternative Careers in Science: Leaving the Ivory Tower. While Robbins-Roth's book focuses mainly on biotech's benefits, Jeremy Rifkin assesses the field's potential perils in The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World. Information on over 9,000 companies, universities and research groups involved in the biotechnology industry is available in the Biotechnology Directory 2000.

Reviewed by MH - June 13, 2000

From Alchemy to IPO tells the dramatic story of this revolutionary industry as only an insider can.

George Rathmann

A tour-de-force for anyone who is interested in the biotech industry. I applaud the enormous achievement of Cynthia Robbins-Roth.

Frederick Frank