JPMorgan Dad Starts Biotech in Muscular Dystrophy Quest

Ilan Ganot, a hedge fund banker at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), left his life in finance to create a new business model aimed at developing drugs more quickly. His sons life may depend on his success.

Since his 2-year-old was diagnosed a year ago with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a fatal genetic disease, Ganot quit his job in London, moved his family to the Boston area, raised $17 million and founded a biotechnology company.

Ganot, 40, a former Israeli army captain, is one of a generation of parents who are stepping in when medicine and industry dont move fast enough to save their children. Instead of the usual approach of forming or supporting an advocacy group, Ganot is using his roots in finance to start a business aimed at getting treatments to market.

Hes a really exceptional example of a parent who says, Im going to take my skills and apply them to this problem, said Sharon Hesterlee, vice president of research at Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, a nonprofit focused on the disease. You want them to solve world peace after this.

Ganot would settle for making a difference in the disease afflicting his son, Eytani. Theres no cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which occurs when the body fails to produce a protein called dystrophin that supports muscle fiber strength. DMD puts kids in wheelchairs before their teens and is often fatal in their 20s.

Ilan Ganot and his son Eytani pose for a portrait on February 9, 2014. Eytani was... Read More

Ilan Ganot and his son Eytani pose for a portrait on February 9, 2014. Eytani was diagnosed a year ago with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a fatal genetic disease. Close

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Ilan Ganot and his son Eytani pose for a portrait on February 9, 2014. Eytani was diagnosed a year ago with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a fatal genetic disease.

Ganots plan is for his new company to tackle the disease with a strategy he calls condition focus, a sole concentration on DMD. He seeks to fill a funding gap that can hold up promising projects in their early stages, tapping into his background in finance to speed up the notoriously slow and risky enterprise of developing drugs.

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JPMorgan Dad Starts Biotech in Muscular Dystrophy Quest