91av

A book about biotech pioneer Genentech from the company’s point of view skimps on science in favour of a glossy tale of daring and chutzpah

IN TODAY’S biotech industry, start-up companies sprout from every university biology department, looking to hook up with big pharma or agrochemical firms to take their patented, DNA-based ingenuity lucratively to market. But that option did not exist in 1973, when university researchers created the first artificial gene sequences of recombinant DNA. By 1980 it did, largely due to the struggles, luck and sheer chutzpah of these pioneering molecular biologists. They blazed a commercial and cultural trail, one followed not just by biotechnology but also by the rest of modern high-tech industry.

The leader of the pack was . If you are interested in a blow-by-blow account of its early, triumphant years – founder and biochemist Herbert Boyer did this, his partner, venture capitalist Robert Swanson, did that, then they beat everyone to synthesis of human insulin – this is your book.

Science writer Sally Smith Hughes presents things entirely from Genentech’s point of view, based on its own archives and oral history project. This is perhaps fitting for a company that so embodies US West Coast narcissism (as well as the area’s ) that it commissioned a bronze statue of its two founders’ legendary first meeting over beer. Still, history told by participants has value.

There might have been better ways to tell it, though, than a repetitive Homeric paean extolling “masculine” energy, competition and high jinks. In particular, more background on the actual science the company did may have better conveyed the magnitude of what these characters accomplished. But Smith Hughes seems to assume you don’t want the details.

Other glossed-over details that, in depth, could have made this a more balanced read include early concerns about genetic modification, and events at the 1975 Asilomar meeting in California, at which scientists agreed to self-police their work on recombinant DNA. Also lacking is context from sources outside the company, as well as insight into Genentech’s later years, when triumphs yielded to success, litigation and the firm’s eventual acquisition.

This is an encyclopaedic account of one firm’s role in a crucial era of biotechnology. It will surely be an invaluable resource for more balanced histories of those amazing years.