The Beginning of the End for the Biotech Giant Genentech. Part One

When I was in graduate school at Berkeley in the 1980s, everyone who didn't want a job in academia wanted to work for Genentech. Genentech was the first biotech company and certainly the most respected. Well, that was then and this is now.

Genentech sells two monoclonal antibody based drugs that I think are total crap. There are many people who disagree, but I couldn't care less. These two drugs, Herceptin and Avastin, are incredibly expensive and can be completely replaced by very inexpensive generic drugs and OTC products.

Herceptin is sold for $40,000 a year, while Genentech wants to charge $100,000 for Avastin. See the following Blog article for background information on Avastin, the cancer drug no one can afford.

http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2006/02/cancer-drugs-no-one-can-afford.htm

According to Genentech, 2005 sales of Avastin topped $1.182 billion. Herceptin sales were $764 million.

Avastin is an antibody that binds and neutralizes a blood vessel growth factor called VEGF or vascular endothelial growth factor. VEGF and other blood vessel growth factors promote angiogenesis or the growth of blood vessels. Tumors cannot grow beyond a certain small size unless they are constantly fed with new blood vessels and the nutrients that these blood vessels supply. If you block angiogenesis, cancer cells become unstable and subject to death. Avastin neutralizes VEGF AFTER it is made in tumor and other cells. It does NOT inhibit the production of VEGF in these cells. Avastin is only approved for use with chemotherapy drugs.

Herceptin is an antibody that binds the epidermal growth factor receptor HER2. The receptor is overexpressed in many breast and ovarian cancers, and promotes the survival of these cells. Herceptin is only approved for use with chemotherapy drugs.

In the following blogs, I am going to tell you why Genentech, in the next five years, is subject to total financial collapse. These two obscenely expensive drugs are unnecessary as they can be replaced by cheap generic drugs and OTC products.

I disclose that I own no stock in Genentech nor do I intend to take a "short" position in their stocks in the future. At one time, I absolutely loved and admired this company. But when they began financially gouging people with cancer, the rules changed. I am now officially pissed off.

Genentech, and companies like it, are one of the reasons our health care systems do not work. They make and distribute anti-cancer products that are affordable only to the rich or heavily insured. Granted, they do work to some extent, but they can be EASILY replaced by other products. And that is exactly what is going to happen. It is intolerable to relegate 45 million uninsured Americans and hundreds of millions of poor people around the world to deaths by cancer when cheap, effective drugs are available. We simply have to get the word out.

Stay tuned...

Grouppe Kurosawa, Medicine in the Public Interest

http://www.grouppekurosawa.com

Comments

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