George Rathmann Interview (page: 9 / 9) Founding Chairman, Amgen	Print Interview

What's the lure of starting a new venture? It's almost like a rollercoaster ride.

George Rathmann: It's probably some form of stupidity, but it really turns out to be the opportunity to make a difference. It really is so clear.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. When you get to a large company -- even though you started as a tiny company -- when you get to a large company, you know full well they can get along without you. And that's great. That's the way it has to be. But when you look at a small new one, you get the feeling that it could go under, or it could fail to see anywhere near its full potential. So you can make a huge difference. And it may be arrogance. There's certainly an element of pride there. But I think it's a fun thing to think about all the things you might be able to do -- and you find out. Of course, you get this impression anyway when you start dealing with people and they say, "Oh my gosh, you've done that already, and you've done that already. Ah, if you'd just tell me about how to do this." I spent two-and-a-half hours this morning -- that's why I missed the morning session -- because somebody heard I was going to be in Phoenix, and they just wanted to talk to me about their new company. We talked for a couple hours on a company that has five employees, but they've got a long way to go. And they can make it. I mean, they can make it. They just need to get encouragement, and I don't want to join that board. I've got plenty to do. But at least once in a while, when you see that the person needs more than advice; he needs maybe some leadership and some direct involvement by somebody, then you feel like, "I think I'd like to do it." But it's hard to make a difference when you're just going to be an advisor. I may make a difference in that company this morning. May happen again and again, because a lot of people come by. But I always have the fear that a little bit of advice could be very dangerous. Whereas, you put yourself into it, it's your life. Then what you do is probably going to be more productive. So you get the feeling -- I still have the feeling that this new company -- there's a lot of things I can do there. I've been there now 120 days. I probably have ten years of work ahead of me to make sure that it realizes its full potential, but that's very exciting. I think that's what is exciting.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

What attracted you to Hyseq?

George Rathmann: They had unusual technology, and it was also the first time I've been able to tie in with a genomics company. So whatever everybody has been talking about for five years, the genomics revolution, I've missed it. We were doing other things, and they're exciting, and there are other ways to work with genes. It's all genes. But the idea of actually starting with a gene that you don't know what it does is a totally different way to start than starting with looking for a gene for something that you know what it does.

And so ordinarily I'd say it's pretty obviously which I'd rather do. I'd rather look for the gene that I know what it does than get a gene that I don't know what it does, except what if you could get 35,000 genes that you don't know what they do? Now you have an opportunity that's got great value, potential value. So one gene, give me one that I know something about. Thirty-five-thousand? I can't get 35,000 I know something about. The only way I can get 35,000 is to do gene sequencing for the sake of sequencing. So we had a very clever, fast, accurate technique for doing that, and we got all these genes. And now you say, "Well, now what do we do?" Well, now it's a combination of biology and medicine and probably some good luck and some very clever thinking, some of the thinking that's called informatics today, which is using information to decide which of the genes are the best, and extracting information from the gene to do that. So it's almost a whole new dimension in biotech, and that was very fascinating. I thought, "I've missed this. I better do it."

Do you think you might ever again retire for 30 minutes?

George Rathmann: I don't think I've really learned it yet, but I think I might! Maybe even longer. But there's a certain number. We have a pretty big family, and the family has its own ideas about how long I should retire for. I don't think I quite hit the threshold at 30 minutes, but I think they also know that it sort of runs in the family. My dad worked till he was 80, and my brother worked until the last day of his life. I didn't have any strong desire to emulate this. In fact, I didn't think it was all the smartest thing in the world, but I can see why it happened, because it's a dimension of your life that becomes very important. You're not inhibited from doing a lot of other things too. So we do a lot of things.

You may have the non-retirement gene.

George Rathmann: Yes. It may be a dominant too. I'm a little afraid that it may be passed on to the rest of the family.

Looking to the future, do you think the biotech industry will continue to be a dominant one in our world?

George Rathmann: Oh, yes. The amazing thing is it's so powerful and up until now, absolutely benign. Maybe something is going to come along that suggests an unpleasant side. There were all these fears back in the early '80s. I lived through some of those debates, and some deterrents to good research. Bernadine Healy is here today. She was in one of these sessions where there was a vigorous debate that we should stop biotechnology. I was pleased to see her, she's a very nice lady. She was in charge of the National Institutes of Health later on, and has a great career, but we happened to be on a panel together, about 1985, and we were really tooth and nail as to whether we should be allowed to continue in biotechnology. There were a lot of concerns, and all of this has more or less been left behind us, because the science has been so productive and so benign.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Although you've got these scary ethical issues -- and they really are scary -- dealing with possibly altering human beings and so on. So you know it's very powerful, but the wisdom of people up 'til now has been so clearly demonstrated that it's channeled to doing good. And the good is literally unlimited. Today we know of diseases that we've been studying for years. They've been high priority to solve. I mean, cancer is one. Cardiovascular disease is another. Diabetes, one that we've made a lot of progress on, is another. These diseases, you rank them together and there's lots of different ways of looking at it. One is in terms of the cost to society, which is in the $500 billion range, just in the United States alone. Another is the numbers of individuals that have their life compromised forever, because these are violent diseases that take a terrible toll and so on. You'd say, "Well, can biotech do anything about that?" It will. It will go after every single one of these diseases, and there's progress every day. So the future, I think, is so attractive that I wouldn't like to have every one of these young people go into biotech, because I think they should pick the choices that they should make. They should make the things -- if they want music, they want to be a mystery writer -- and that's the wonderful thing about this conference, that they have stimulus in any direction they need it, and that's wonderful. But I certainly would say that anybody that happens to be fascinated by biotechnology is not going to be disappointed with where it's going to go and how far it's going to get us. I think it's going to be much more a problem-solver than a problem-creator. And it has been up 'til now.

[ Key to Success ] Vision

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.

George Rathmann: You're welcome.

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