Courtesy of Genentech
Genentech, the first US biotechnology company, has survived ugly patent disputes, product flops, and a Big Pharma partnership to become the biotech every company wants to be. The stock market value of the company, which makes the cancer drugs Herceptin and Rituxan, rose $7 billion (US), or 12%, in a single day in April based on promising data for a new lung-cancer treatment, Tarceva. That jump came less than a year after good results for Avastin in colon cancer trials sent the stock up $9 billion in a day.
Genentech's stock market value has doubled in one year, making it more valuable than some major pharmaceutical firms, including Wyeth, Schering-Plough, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Yet the San Francisco company casts itself as the 'anti-pharma' company.
Genentech nurtures its image as a science-driven company that rejects the drug industry's blockbuster model, which is based on mass-market anticholesterol, blood pressure, ...
