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Academia to industry: business as usual
136 territorial zeal in protecting space, equipment, personnel and, worst of all, ideas, can threaten the free exchange of ideas and frustrate collaboration. While acknowledging the danger of generalization, and that personal rivalries and undesirable behavior can surface in any setting, I none the less consider that my present environment has been extremely successful in developing an organization conducive to collaboration and the sharing of ideas. I believe that the merits
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983 of this approach will become increasingly evident in the coming years. I consider that some of the most important and fundamental questions in the biological sciences can best be answered by cooperative interactions between scientists with diverse skills who have access to substantial resources. I believe that industry has much to offer in this regard and that the coming decade will find many industrial laboratories at the forefront of research in the biomedical
Academia to industry: business as usual
ChristopherHenney Major decisions in one's life often have their birth in minor, even negligible, incidents. M y decision to move from academia to private industry certainly had very simple origins. About the time that the public launching of Genentech was making the front pages of Time magazine, I was at that most American of institutions, a meeting of the parent-teacher association. There, a fellow parent confronted me with the week's Genentech news and, knowing that I was involved in biological research, asked whether I had thought of forming a private company. I made the usual reflex lip movements about academic freedom, the potential evils of the business world, moved on to what I considered more interesting topics and did not give the matter further thought. A month or so later, I was recalling to a group of colleagues my frustrations at the deliberations of a faculty Search Committee on which I was serving. Steve Gillis, entering the room at the tail end of my observations, and having heard most of them many times before, remarked that there was an easy solution. The way to avoid what Steve termed' the shedding of gastric mucosa', which always accompanied my trips to committee rooms, was simply to leave academia. Indeed, he had a lawyer friend who was constantly urging him to do just that and who was offering counsel on how to start a private company. (Only later were we to discover that the lawyer friend and the parent I had encountered at my daughter's school were one and the same. ) We both readily agreed that such a radical course of action as forming a private laboratory was impractical, but it was not long after this discussion that another set of university woes, coupled with disturbing news from Washington on the future of federal research funding led us to the attorney's office. That meeting resulted in at least an emotional com-
Christopher S. Henney is agraduate of the University of Birmingham, UK,
B.Sc. (1962),
Ph.D.
(1965),
D.Sc. (1972). After postdoctoral training with Kimishige Ishlzaka in Denver, he served two years at the W H O I m m u n o g l o b u l i n Reference Laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in 1970, moved to Johns Hopkins University as Assistant (later Associate) Professor of Medicine. I n 1978, he moved to head the P r o g r a m of Basic Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and concurrently became Professor of Microbiology and I m m u n o l o g y at the University of Washington Medical School. I n 1981, together with D r Steven Gillis, he was a founder of the Immunex Corporation, where he currently serves as
Scientific Director. mitment to enter the biotechnology industry. At ~mt time, early in 1981, raising the money was to our surprise not a major
© 1983, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam 0167 - 4919/83/$01.00
sciences. In addition to the significant contributions that this trend will make to the technological productivity of nations and to human welfare, it will also eliminate many of the anachronistic and artificial barriers that exist between academia and industry, and will allow them to face the future as partners rather than as strangers. G. Posteis Vice-President,Smith Kline and French Laboratories, 1500 Spring Garden Street, PO Box 7929, Philadelphi~ PA 19101, USA.
issue and, having found in a Seattle business man someone who could explain to us the financial ramifications of our decision, we identified sources of funds within a relatively short time. The choice of public versus private funding of the laboratories we proposed to build was not, I suppose, a subject that many scientists had previously faced and certainly Steve Gillis and I were quite naive about the issues involved in making such decisions. After considerable discussion, we elected to be funded by private sources. Fortunately, we were able to convince a number of the largest venture capital funds in the USA to support us and we were soon joined by a major European venture firm. Within a span of six months we identified a building, built a 15 000 sq. ft research laboratory (those in universities and government might appreciate our amazement that this could be done from scratch within 12 weeks) and recruited a very able staff. At the time of writing, we have been running for about 6 months, with a full-time scientific staff of about 40, and are engaged in an interdisciplinary research program in the area of immunoregulation, with a particular focus on the clinical applicability of regulatory. proteins such as lymphokines. The events of the last 18 months have been so many and varied, that only now am I beginning to reflect a little on them and why I made the decisions that I did (which, as I understand it, is the purpose that this essay is supposed to serve). I am a firm believer that most of the major decisions in one's life (the choice of a partner, of a career, or a familymove) are dictated by the viscera rather than the mind. Certainly, mine have been. Obviously, scientists more than most like to believe in their own rationality and I have been quick to defend, to anyone who would listen, the sense of my decision to leave the university environment. My arguments have usually followed fairly predictable lines. It is obvious to all that conventional sources of research funding are now less secure than they have ever been and that they will get
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983 worse, as a larger work force seeks a smaller and smaller research' pie'. There is, furthermore, a general concern about the lack of conventional job opportunities for even the most capable of our students. The huge amount of time spent by a laboratory head in the pursuit of research funds could clearly be more productively used. I think that these are real issues, as valid for Europeans as for Americans, and sufficient in themselves to motivate large numbers of academics at all stages of their careers to contemplate moving their research operations to a setting which, at least superficially, does not present these problems. Furthermore, the troubles of the research worker in academia have been confounded by the very slow reaction time of the various government bodies in acknowledging that problems exist and that something should be done about them. In this vein, I was not really surprised to see in Nature (7 October 1982) that the British government had commissioned a 'partial survey' by the Institute of Manpower Studies to look into the emigration rates among qualified British
137 biotechnologists. Only when armed with this committee's report will the government apparently be willing to accept that the loss of skilled manpower is an issue. One might safely predict that the problem (along with the British biotechnologists) will have disappeared before the committee is able to make its report. I can only hope that the emigrating scientists will find a safe haven, for on this side of the Atlantic too the muscles of government seem to be composed entirely of 'slow-twitch' fibers. As I said, I believe that the current problems confronting research scientists in university settings are profound and are sufficient to motivate many academics to leave for the industrial workplace. I do not believe, however, that these issues were of overwhelming significance in making my own decision; although they have certainly been helpful in allowing me to rationalize that I have made the correct choice. Indeed, when I look back over the reasons why I moved, chance seems to have played a bigger part than logic.
Steve Gillis and I met by chance; when he interviewed for a job other than the one that eventually caused him to move to Seattle. Chance dictated that a business man we met socially (and who is now the president of our company) was looking for new worlds at the same time we were. Perhaps the most important encounter was, moreover, the one in which chance played the largest role. The initial meeting with our patient attorney came via the Yellow Pages of the telephone book. This meeting was pivotal in the formation of our company because without this attorney's urging I doubt that we would have been sufficiently goaded into making the j u m p that we did. Only time will tell whether it proves possible for us to do 'cutting-edge' science outside a conventional academic center; that, ultimately, will be the measure of our success. It seems an experiment eminently worth trying. Christopher Henney is Scientific Director, Immunex Corporation, 51 University Building, Suite 600, Seattle, WA 98101, USA.
The challenge of being useful Anthony Allison I enjoyed working for the Medical Research Council, but felt after two decades that I would like to do something useful, as well as academically interesting, during the remainder of my career. Two global problems seemed especially urgent: parasitic diseases of man and domestic animals, and the rate of population growth in Third World countries. A venture working on parasitic diseases in Kenya was interesting but politically turbulent, and the timing for a move into industry seemed right. Added to the traditional resource of industry, synthetic chemical capability, is the new resource of biotechnology. As government support of research declines in absolute terms, that of industry is increasing, and this pattern seems established for at least a decade. Syntex is managed by scientists and spends more than 10% of total sales on research, the highest rate in the industry. The Institute of Biological Sciences, which I direct, is concerned with immunologically based inflammation. We axe exploiting new types of immunosuppressive drugs active on subsets of lymphocytes, and inhibition of the formation or action of inflammatory mediators, such as lipoxygenase products. Several methods for synthesizing contraceptive steroids were developed by Syntex, which sells these hormones to
Third World countries through the United States Agency for International Development. We are now working on a new generation of safe and efficacious contraceptives, which should be useful in technologically advanced as well as other countries. New approaches to inhibition of atherogenesis and thrombosis are being developed. My first administrative task was as chairman of a task force that advised management to explore the possible applications of monoclonal antibodies for cancer diagnosis. Production ofpolypeptide hormones and antigens by synthesis and recombinant DNA technology is also being undertaken at Syntex. Delivery systems and adjuvants are required to make these useful, and industry has the resources which make that type of development possible. O u r research ranges all the way from oxygen radicals and novel biotechnology to product development, and that is fun, as well as being potentially useful. Enjoying work, living in a pleasing environment with a good climate, and being able to afford a glass of wine with dinner, is as much as any scientist has a right to expect. Anthony C Allison is Vice-Presidentfor Research, and Director, Institute of Biological Sciences, Syntex Research, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.
A n t h o n y C. Allison obtained a D . P h i h and a medical qualification from Oxford, U K . He spent 10 years at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, U K , and 10 years as Head of the Cell Pathology Division of the Clinical Research Centre, Harrow, U K . From 1978 to 1980 he w a s Director of the I n t e r n a t i o n a l L a b o r a t o r y for Research on Animal Diseases, Nairobi, Kenya, and since 1981 has been Vice-President for R e s e a r c h , a n d Director of the Institute for Biological Sciences, Syntex Research, Palo Alto, California, USA.
© 1983, Elsevier Science P u b l i s h e r s B V , A m s l e r d a l / a
()1•7
4!¢I~'~i/$1)1 ¢)11
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983 of this approach will become increasingly evident in the coming years. I consider that some of the most important and fundamental questions in the biological sciences can best be answered by cooperative interactions between scientists with diverse skills who have access to substantial resources. I believe that industry has much to offer in this regard and that the coming decade will find many industrial laboratories at the forefront of research in the biomedical
Academia to industry: business as usual
ChristopherHenney Major decisions in one's life often have their birth in minor, even negligible, incidents. M y decision to move from academia to private industry certainly had very simple origins. About the time that the public launching of Genentech was making the front pages of Time magazine, I was at that most American of institutions, a meeting of the parent-teacher association. There, a fellow parent confronted me with the week's Genentech news and, knowing that I was involved in biological research, asked whether I had thought of forming a private company. I made the usual reflex lip movements about academic freedom, the potential evils of the business world, moved on to what I considered more interesting topics and did not give the matter further thought. A month or so later, I was recalling to a group of colleagues my frustrations at the deliberations of a faculty Search Committee on which I was serving. Steve Gillis, entering the room at the tail end of my observations, and having heard most of them many times before, remarked that there was an easy solution. The way to avoid what Steve termed' the shedding of gastric mucosa', which always accompanied my trips to committee rooms, was simply to leave academia. Indeed, he had a lawyer friend who was constantly urging him to do just that and who was offering counsel on how to start a private company. (Only later were we to discover that the lawyer friend and the parent I had encountered at my daughter's school were one and the same. ) We both readily agreed that such a radical course of action as forming a private laboratory was impractical, but it was not long after this discussion that another set of university woes, coupled with disturbing news from Washington on the future of federal research funding led us to the attorney's office. That meeting resulted in at least an emotional com-
Christopher S. Henney is agraduate of the University of Birmingham, UK,
B.Sc. (1962),
Ph.D.
(1965),
D.Sc. (1972). After postdoctoral training with Kimishige Ishlzaka in Denver, he served two years at the W H O I m m u n o g l o b u l i n Reference Laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in 1970, moved to Johns Hopkins University as Assistant (later Associate) Professor of Medicine. I n 1978, he moved to head the P r o g r a m of Basic Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and concurrently became Professor of Microbiology and I m m u n o l o g y at the University of Washington Medical School. I n 1981, together with D r Steven Gillis, he was a founder of the Immunex Corporation, where he currently serves as
Scientific Director. mitment to enter the biotechnology industry. At ~mt time, early in 1981, raising the money was to our surprise not a major
© 1983, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam 0167 - 4919/83/$01.00
sciences. In addition to the significant contributions that this trend will make to the technological productivity of nations and to human welfare, it will also eliminate many of the anachronistic and artificial barriers that exist between academia and industry, and will allow them to face the future as partners rather than as strangers. G. Posteis Vice-President,Smith Kline and French Laboratories, 1500 Spring Garden Street, PO Box 7929, Philadelphi~ PA 19101, USA.
issue and, having found in a Seattle business man someone who could explain to us the financial ramifications of our decision, we identified sources of funds within a relatively short time. The choice of public versus private funding of the laboratories we proposed to build was not, I suppose, a subject that many scientists had previously faced and certainly Steve Gillis and I were quite naive about the issues involved in making such decisions. After considerable discussion, we elected to be funded by private sources. Fortunately, we were able to convince a number of the largest venture capital funds in the USA to support us and we were soon joined by a major European venture firm. Within a span of six months we identified a building, built a 15 000 sq. ft research laboratory (those in universities and government might appreciate our amazement that this could be done from scratch within 12 weeks) and recruited a very able staff. At the time of writing, we have been running for about 6 months, with a full-time scientific staff of about 40, and are engaged in an interdisciplinary research program in the area of immunoregulation, with a particular focus on the clinical applicability of regulatory. proteins such as lymphokines. The events of the last 18 months have been so many and varied, that only now am I beginning to reflect a little on them and why I made the decisions that I did (which, as I understand it, is the purpose that this essay is supposed to serve). I am a firm believer that most of the major decisions in one's life (the choice of a partner, of a career, or a familymove) are dictated by the viscera rather than the mind. Certainly, mine have been. Obviously, scientists more than most like to believe in their own rationality and I have been quick to defend, to anyone who would listen, the sense of my decision to leave the university environment. My arguments have usually followed fairly predictable lines. It is obvious to all that conventional sources of research funding are now less secure than they have ever been and that they will get
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983 worse, as a larger work force seeks a smaller and smaller research' pie'. There is, furthermore, a general concern about the lack of conventional job opportunities for even the most capable of our students. The huge amount of time spent by a laboratory head in the pursuit of research funds could clearly be more productively used. I think that these are real issues, as valid for Europeans as for Americans, and sufficient in themselves to motivate large numbers of academics at all stages of their careers to contemplate moving their research operations to a setting which, at least superficially, does not present these problems. Furthermore, the troubles of the research worker in academia have been confounded by the very slow reaction time of the various government bodies in acknowledging that problems exist and that something should be done about them. In this vein, I was not really surprised to see in Nature (7 October 1982) that the British government had commissioned a 'partial survey' by the Institute of Manpower Studies to look into the emigration rates among qualified British
137 biotechnologists. Only when armed with this committee's report will the government apparently be willing to accept that the loss of skilled manpower is an issue. One might safely predict that the problem (along with the British biotechnologists) will have disappeared before the committee is able to make its report. I can only hope that the emigrating scientists will find a safe haven, for on this side of the Atlantic too the muscles of government seem to be composed entirely of 'slow-twitch' fibers. As I said, I believe that the current problems confronting research scientists in university settings are profound and are sufficient to motivate many academics to leave for the industrial workplace. I do not believe, however, that these issues were of overwhelming significance in making my own decision; although they have certainly been helpful in allowing me to rationalize that I have made the correct choice. Indeed, when I look back over the reasons why I moved, chance seems to have played a bigger part than logic.
Steve Gillis and I met by chance; when he interviewed for a job other than the one that eventually caused him to move to Seattle. Chance dictated that a business man we met socially (and who is now the president of our company) was looking for new worlds at the same time we were. Perhaps the most important encounter was, moreover, the one in which chance played the largest role. The initial meeting with our patient attorney came via the Yellow Pages of the telephone book. This meeting was pivotal in the formation of our company because without this attorney's urging I doubt that we would have been sufficiently goaded into making the j u m p that we did. Only time will tell whether it proves possible for us to do 'cutting-edge' science outside a conventional academic center; that, ultimately, will be the measure of our success. It seems an experiment eminently worth trying. Christopher Henney is Scientific Director, Immunex Corporation, 51 University Building, Suite 600, Seattle, WA 98101, USA.
The challenge of being useful Anthony Allison I enjoyed working for the Medical Research Council, but felt after two decades that I would like to do something useful, as well as academically interesting, during the remainder of my career. Two global problems seemed especially urgent: parasitic diseases of man and domestic animals, and the rate of population growth in Third World countries. A venture working on parasitic diseases in Kenya was interesting but politically turbulent, and the timing for a move into industry seemed right. Added to the traditional resource of industry, synthetic chemical capability, is the new resource of biotechnology. As government support of research declines in absolute terms, that of industry is increasing, and this pattern seems established for at least a decade. Syntex is managed by scientists and spends more than 10% of total sales on research, the highest rate in the industry. The Institute of Biological Sciences, which I direct, is concerned with immunologically based inflammation. We axe exploiting new types of immunosuppressive drugs active on subsets of lymphocytes, and inhibition of the formation or action of inflammatory mediators, such as lipoxygenase products. Several methods for synthesizing contraceptive steroids were developed by Syntex, which sells these hormones to
Third World countries through the United States Agency for International Development. We are now working on a new generation of safe and efficacious contraceptives, which should be useful in technologically advanced as well as other countries. New approaches to inhibition of atherogenesis and thrombosis are being developed. My first administrative task was as chairman of a task force that advised management to explore the possible applications of monoclonal antibodies for cancer diagnosis. Production ofpolypeptide hormones and antigens by synthesis and recombinant DNA technology is also being undertaken at Syntex. Delivery systems and adjuvants are required to make these useful, and industry has the resources which make that type of development possible. O u r research ranges all the way from oxygen radicals and novel biotechnology to product development, and that is fun, as well as being potentially useful. Enjoying work, living in a pleasing environment with a good climate, and being able to afford a glass of wine with dinner, is as much as any scientist has a right to expect. Anthony C Allison is Vice-Presidentfor Research, and Director, Institute of Biological Sciences, Syntex Research, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.
A n t h o n y C. Allison obtained a D . P h i h and a medical qualification from Oxford, U K . He spent 10 years at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, U K , and 10 years as Head of the Cell Pathology Division of the Clinical Research Centre, Harrow, U K . From 1978 to 1980 he w a s Director of the I n t e r n a t i o n a l L a b o r a t o r y for Research on Animal Diseases, Nairobi, Kenya, and since 1981 has been Vice-President for R e s e a r c h , a n d Director of the Institute for Biological Sciences, Syntex Research, Palo Alto, California, USA.
© 1983, Elsevier Science P u b l i s h e r s B V , A m s l e r d a l / a
()1•7
4!¢I~'~i/$1)1 ¢)11