Genentech was on the right path. 2 new scientists joined in. Arthur Riggs, a molecular biologist and his colleague, Keiichi Itakura, a Japanese organic chemist. Both were at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. Herbert Heyneker was a postdoctoral student who joined Boyer lab in the fall of 1975. Itakura was responsible for getting the synthetic DNA, Herbert was responsible of splicing the fragment into a plasmid and then cloning it inside the bacterium. The results of their experiments were outstanding. The protein was biologically functional and this was determined through an assay now known as blue-white screening. In the press coverage, Boyer was very exciting to talk about bacterial factories from which huge quantities …show more content…
The main aim of this experiment was to see if bacteria can actually produce a protein from a higher organism and to understand its gene regulation and expression. They applied to NIH for $40,000 as funds to go ahead with the project in E.coli. The application was rejected. They convinced Swanson for the experiment who reluctantly gave in eventually. They signed an agreement with City of Hope providing parameters for royalty payments and property protection. $35,000 was granted and Genentech would get license of those patents and City of Hope would get 2% royalties on the products sold. Thomas Kiley from Lyon & Lyon an IP firm, negotiated the agreement. Richard Scheller, a graduate student at California Institute of Technology was the means of their third collaboration with Caltech. Many complexities arose and City of Hope filed a case in 1999 claiming that Genentech owed them around $500 million worth royalties. It was a sad end to their partnership. By February, Swanson had raised $850,000 and the somatostatin research could start. Robberto Crea, an Italian saw Genentech as a supporting factor to his postdoctoral fellowship at City of …show more content…
Venture capital was one way to sought to, for long term financing, by either public stock offering or acquisition. For the drug to reach market, they would require the back-up from a pharmaceutical company. Along with Boyer and Perkins, Swanson approached a Danish company, Novo Industri, but was let down. Another company, Hoechst, a German pharmaceuticals and chemical manufacturer gave the same response. Elli Lily was another company ruling over 80% of North America’s insulin market, and they were interested. By march 1978, Swanson acquired $950,000 at $8/share. They finally settled Genentech at the Industrial City, north of Silicon