Genentech Campus Sign

Year: 1976
Creator: Herbert Boyer, Robert Swanson
Company: Genentech
Location: South San Francisco, California
Room: Augmentation ↗

Description

Genentech is a biotechnology company that Herbert Boyer of UCSF and the venture capitalist Robert Swanson started in 1976. The image shows a sign with the company name on its campus in South San Francisco.

Importance

Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm in the Valley, supplied the seed money for Genentech. Swanson had been a partner at the firm, which Fairchild founder Eugene Kleiner and Tom Perkins started in 1972. In 1982, the FDA approved Humulin, a human insulin that Genentech developed with Eli Lilly, and it became the first biotechnology product on the market.

Interesting fact

Boyer agreed to give Swanson 10 minutes for their first meeting, but the conversation continued for three hours.

Acquisition

Roche · 2009

Sources

Our Founders ↗Genentech
Herbert W. Boyer and Stanley N. Cohen ↗Science History Institute
Roche Investments USA Inc. tender offer for Genentech, Inc. (Schedule TO, exhibit) ↗U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR) · 2009-03-12
Genentech: Pioneering medical breakthroughs with biotechnology ↗Kleiner Perkins
Kleiner Perkins ↗Wikipedia