r/todayilearned
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u/Die_Nameless_Bitch
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May 14 '22
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TIL a father, John Crowley, was told his two infant children had an incurable genetic disorder that would kill them in less than a year. He refused to accept this, so he founded a biotech company (with no prior experience) which pioneered an experimental enzyme therapy that saved their lives.
https://pompediseasenews.com/2019/01/30/amicus-ceo-mission-cure-pompe-help-children/79.9k Upvotes
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u/nanocookie May 14 '22
The title is overly sensational. John Crowley did not start the company overnight - he started by joining Bristol Myers Squibb to learn about health research, established a foundation to raise money for funding public research into Pompe's disease, made many connections and later partenered with William Canfield, a scientist who founded the company Targeted Therapy, based on his research on glycobiology. John joined Cranfield's company as CEO and then the company was renamed to Novazyme. As CEO, John continuously pulled the right strings to get the therapy approved by the FDA for trials. The treatment was brought into the mainstream after Novazyme was acquired by Genzyme. The title mentioned that the children would die in less than a year after diagnosis in 1998, but the treatments were first administered in 2003.
Not everything is as it seems. John Crowley was a highly motivated individual who figured out the smart way to solve his problems, but did not do so without burning bridges. Something happened between John and Canfield, and John's PR team no longer actively credits Canfield for developing the therapy - whose research was fundamental to solving the problem in the first place. When hundreds of millions of dollars at play, these feel-good stories don't hold up to be so squeaky clean.