If unorthodoxy and self-discipline may very well be blended and bottled, Bob Duggan would have one other multibillion-dollar product.
For now, his fortunes are targeted on an experimental most cancers drug that wowed researchers at this month’s World Convention on Lung Most cancers, sending the inventory of his small Menlo Park-based Summit Therapeutics surging 700% — and Duggan’s web price to about $16 billion, in line with Forbes knowledge.
“Anything is possible, if you put your attention on it. Today’s beliefs become tomorrow’s facts,” mentioned Duggan, an 80-year-old surfer, practising Scientologist and Atherton resident who, together with his former spouse, adopted six kids in his 50s. With no faculty diploma or science pedigree, he has remodeled two struggling biotech corporations into thriving enterprises.
Summit Therapeutics Co-CEO and Chairman Bob Duggan, 80, talks throughout an interview at his biotech firm on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
He has blazed by means of different disciplines like a meteor, serving to construct a greater chocolate chip cookie, Ethernet node processors and surgical robotic.
Now he’s set his sights on most cancers, which claimed the lifetime of a son identified with glioblastoma at age 23.
Consultants say that way more knowledge is required to show the lasting efficacy of Summit’s new drug, an immunotherapy referred to as ivonescimab.
However, in David-and-Goliath trend, the corporate’s drug appears to outperform the world’s greatest promoting drug, Keytruda, made by pharmaceutical large Merck. Knowledge reveals that it lower the danger of illness development in half in individuals just lately identified with a lethal type of superior non-small-cell lung most cancers. Tumor development was held off for a median of simply over 11 months, in comparison with virtually six months in individuals given Keytruda. It’s now being examined in 18 completely different most cancers trials.
The corporate, as soon as struggling, is now headquartered on Sand Hill Street, Silicon Valley’s Wall Road, tucked between enterprise capital and personal fairness corporations.
This success, whereas tentative, is a shocking instance of all that’s shocking and tumultuous about biotech, an business the place noble pursuits to remedy ailments face unlikely odds, with most merchandise failing.
It additionally reveals that those that succeed can strike gold.
The son of an Irish immigrant fleeing poverty, Duggan was born in Oakland, grew up in an $8,000 home subsequent to a cherry orchard on the nook of Bascom Avenue and Newhall Road in west San Jose. His father was a Westinghouse engineer and his mom was a registered nurse who labored at an area cannery. Each mother and father fed younger Duggan’s curiosity and despatched him to Catholic colleges: St Clair’s, St. Leo’s and St. Francis Excessive Faculty.
Then he ventured far off the standard path. At UC Santa Barbara and UCLA, he took lessons in philosophy, enterprise and no matter else caught his fancy.
Summit Therapeutics Co-CEO and Chairman Bob Duggan, 80, talks throughout an interview at his biotech firm on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
His first firm bought embroidery kits to customers, a $100,000 funding that was later bought for $15 million.
One other early enterprise began at a shopping center. Whereas researching the recent canine enterprise, he realized that there was a stronger marketplace for chocolate chip cookies made with chips by Nestlé, which stayed gooey as a result of they used further cocoa butter. His Lengthy Seashore-based Paradise Bakery, whose purchasers included McDonald’s and Disney World, was bought to Panera for a good-looking revenue.
A decade in the past, the small Sunnyvale biotech firm Pharmacyclics was on the ropes, teetering towards chapter. Duggan was introduced in and — in biotech’s model of a Hail Mary cross — purchased a drug candidate from a rival firm, then recruited a couple of half-dozen scientists to enhance it. That product, referred to as Imbruvica, now treats a type of blood most cancers.
Duggan bought Pharmacyclics for a shocking $21 billion, an acquisition that now ranks as one of many high 20 pharma offers in historical past.
“His ability to successfully galvanize businesses around a mission is proven,” mentioned Nathan Vardi, creator of the 2023 ebook “For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug,” in regards to the improvement of Imbruvica. “He can analyze situations and know when to keep betting on something, and when to move on.”
Initially, “many scientists were very wary of him,” Vardi mentioned. “But on Wall Street, people looked at him very differently. What they saw was a winner, someone with a track record of succeeding again and again and again.”
Duggan speaks in high-octane loops and spirals, typically digressing to elucidate etymology.
Faith — particularly Scientology, an esoteric faith by which the religion is revealed to those that make investments money and time to grasp the teachings of the late science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard — facilities his life.
“It’s the study of science, wisdom and knowledge,” he mentioned. Conceding that whereas “it freaks some people out … it orients you and brings awareness of yourself as a spiritual being.”
To loosen up, he surfs in Santa Cruz and at his trip dwelling in west Costa Rica.
“Each wave is a work of art,” Duggan mentioned. “Each wave brings a lot of decisions. Can you catch it? Which way is it breaking? How do you ride it?”
His newest large guess is a $5 billion licensing pact with the China-based biotech Akeso, which created ivonescimab. The drug is thrilling as a result of works otherwise than Keytruda, concurrently stifling two proteins concerned in tumor development. It’s an method shared by two rivals, Instil Bio and BioNTech.
“This is quite exciting,” mentioned Dr. Shirish M. Gadgeel, a medical oncologist on the Henry Ford Most cancers Institute in Detroit. Whereas the drug must be examined in a bigger and extra various affected person inhabitants, he referred to as the outcomes “quite striking,” saying, “It may change the standard of care in the coming years.”
Dr. Heather Wakelee, a lung most cancers professional at Stanford Medication, mentioned whereas the brand new drug may show to be an “important breakthrough,” extra testing is required. She famous the most recent trial was comparatively small — about 400 sufferers — and that it was restricted to China, so the drug must be examined on a extra various affected person inhabitants. Wakelee additionally mentioned it was unclear from the trial outcomes whether or not the drug can increase survival charges or prolong affected person lifespans.
“Well-defined problems can be solved,” mentioned Duggan. “Humans are problem solvers. Cancer is a multifactorial problem, for sure. But when you define it well, it can be resolved.”
Summit Therapeutics Co-CEO and Chairman Bob Duggan, 80, at his biotech firm on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
Employees Author Ethan Varian contributed to this report.
