Amgen 2004 Annual Report Download - page 15

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In 1980, when a charismatic chemist named George Rathmann
was recruited by Amgen’s founders to be the fl edgling company’s
chief executive offi cer, biotechnology was an exciting new
frontier
—
but an unproven business. Fortunately, Rathmann
had the right combination of scientifi c expertise and business
experience. He remembers being “enthralled” by the possibilities
of recombinant DNA, believing that this new technology could
lead to wonderful things for patients.
From the beginning, Rathmann had a vision of a company
with a mission to restore health and save lives. What he could not
have foreseen was that an Amgen therapy would one day help
him. In 2003, Rathmann began dialysis treatments. Like many
people with kidney disease, he receives EPOGEN®
for anemia.
He is visibly moved when he speaks about the impact of
EPOGEN®
. He says, “For me, it’s clearly priceless. My whole
health has been improved by it, and I know thousands of
people who have been favorably affected.… When we fi rst
started going to dialysis centers, trying to see if there was a
place for erythropoietin, the people [there] were so sick and
tired they could barely move. Without red blood cells, you don’t
feel warm, you don’t feel energized, and it’s a dreadful, dreadful
thing. So we saw that we had the ability to help hundreds of
thousands of people who had almost given up hope.”
He adds, “Today, I go into the dialysis center and people ask,
‘You had something to do with EPOGEN®?’ I say, ‘Oh, the com-
pany I was with has everything to do with EPOGEN®
.’ They all
know about it. They all know the difference EPOGEN®
makes.”
A leader’s vision
Amgen founders Franklin “Pitch” Johnson, Jr. (left) and
Bill Bowes (right), together with George Rathmann (center),
relive a milestone in Amgen’s history: the 1980 meeting
in Johnson’s backyard in Palo Alto, California, at which
Rathmann agreed to be Amgen’s CEO.
The moment George Rathmann excelled at both science
and business and is now regarded as one of the founding
fathers of the biotechnology industry.
Amgen 2004 Annual Report page 13