If biotech had a Mount Rushmore, whose heads would you chisel there? – STAT

If someone sculpted a Mount Rushmore of biotech CEOs, whod be on it?

The question struck me last week as I was considering the legacy of Vertex Pharma CEO Jeff Leiden upon his retirement. Leidens eight-year run at Vertex was a boon for cystic fibrosis patients and shareholders. His tenure could be viewed as record-breaking, but was it historic enough to cast his visage in granite?

Lets table the Leiden decision for a moment and step back to discuss the criteria for the Mount Rushmore of biotech CEOs. No such monument exists, obviously, but its still fun to argue over who might belong. With only four spots, its going to be an ultra-exclusive club, but should it be limited to founding father types only? (Unfortunately, there are no founding mothers.) Is there room for later generations of biotech executives? How much does scientific acumen matter, or should business performance take precedent?

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I have some thoughts to share, based on two decades spent writing about biotech. Of course, any ranking of legendary biotech CEOs is subjective, and will therefore spark dissension and arguments. This is probably a debate best had while sitting on barstools, but absent that, feel free to offer your own lineup in the comments section below.

There are two biotech CEOs whom I consider to be locks for the Mount Rushmore of biotech: Art Levinson and Henri Termeer. Their inclusion is non-negotiable. Its a hill I am prepared to die on.

Levinson was not a founder of Genentech, but he joined the seminal biotech as a research scientist in its early days and rose through the leadership ranks to become its most respected and accomplished CEO. There might not be a biotech industry without Genentech. Theres no doubt that Genentech seeded the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly South San Francisco, as a global biotech hub.

During Levinsons CEO tenure, Genentech became an oncology juggernaut, successfully developing blockbuster products Herceptin and Avastin while acquiring rights and co-marketing Rituxan. These drugs transformed the lives of cancer patients and generated billions of dollars in revenue.

There are few companies that dominated their industries like Genentech did in biotech during the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was the companys golden age with Levinson at the helm. For that, hes on Mount Rushmore.

Teermer is an almost perfect bookend to Levinson for what he accomplished with Genzyme and the biotech industry in Boston and Cambridge. Termeer led Genzyme from 1983 to 2011, and in that time, he basically invented the biotech business model that spurred the development of medicines to treat rare diseases. Its a strategy that is now nearly ubiquitous across the industry, but it started with Termeer.

Without Termeer and Genzyme, Massachusetts and Kendall Square in particular would not be the jam-packed biotech epicenter that it is today. Dozens of biotech companies are run by science and business executives who once worked under Termeer. Hes a biotech giant, so start carving his face in granite. Theres no circumstance under which Termeer is not on that mountain.

All right, there are two slots left. Heres where the arguments get complicated. For me, at least.

What to do with the true founding fathers of biotech? Im referring to Bob Swanson and Herb Boyer, co-founders of Genentech, and George Rathmann and Gordon Binder of Amgen. You could make a plausible argument for a Mount Rushmore of Swanson, Boyer, Rathmann, and Binder, but I have only two slots to parse out.

In the 1970s, Swanson was the venture capitalist who met and later convinced the biochemist Boyer to form a new company called Genentech to exploit the emerging recombinant DNA technology. Venture capital was (and still is) essential to the birth and growth of biotech, which works in Swansons favor.

And then theres Rathmann, a scientist-turned-businessman who, like Swanson, saw the opportunity in recombinant DNA. Rathmann was the founding CEO of Amgen, which is still independent and now the largest biotech company in the world. Rathmann was also the co-founder and first CEO of Icos, the Seattle-based biotech that attracted investment from Bill Gates.

But if Swanson and Rathmann take up slots three and four on my Mount Rushmore of biotech, that leaves zero real estate for John Martin of Gilead Sciences. That doesnt seem right. In my book, the most transformative biotech merger ever conceived and executed was Gileads acquisition of Triangle Pharma in 2002. From that deal came Truvada, the two-drug combination pill that became (and still is) the backbone of HIV treatment regimens.

Mount Rushmore honors the past, but should it also look to the future?

In the mid-to-late 1990s, HIV patients had to swallow handfuls of antiretroviral medicines to keep the virus in check. Under Martins leadership at Gilead, the company developed simple, once-daily pills that turned HIV into a chronic, manageable disease. Its impossible to overestimate the importance of Gileads role in HIV treatment.

For an encore, Martins Gilead helped cure hepatitis C. Impressive.

Mount Rushmore honors the past, but should it also look to the future? Thats the question which brings me back to Vertex CEO Leiden and a struggle. Leidens track record at Vertex the approval of four drugs that can treat 90% of cystic fibrosis patients will be hard to match. Vertex is now the largest biotech company in Massachusetts, surpassing Biogen, and its move into CRISPR-based medicines points to a promising future.

But if Leiden is a worthy Mount Rushmore candidate, what about Joshua Boger, Vertexs founding CEO? Leiden stands on Bogers shoulders. Its Bogers brash, risk-taking DNA that is very much a part of Vertexs success.

I need a larger mountain.

Its your turn to weigh in now. In the comments below, let me know who would be sculpted into your biotech Mount Rushmore.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that Genentech developed the blood cancer drug Rituxan. The drug was developed by IDEC Pharma and later licensed to Genentech.

Senior Writer, Biotech

Adam is STATs national biotech columnist, reporting on the intersection of biotech and Wall Street.

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If biotech had a Mount Rushmore, whose heads would you chisel there? - STAT