Genzyme

So then I was like, okay, what's the next logical thing? I was like, oh, I'll go work for the pharmaceutical company.

So I started working in Massachusetts at this place called Genzyme.

So we started working on this compound called Fabrazyme for Fabry's disease, which is also a rare genetic disease.

And this is large scale now.

I mean, at Forma, we had an amazing board.

We had Peter Wirth, who's the general counsel at Genzyme.

Marcia Finucci, who's the CFO of Millennium.

Paolo Pelletti, who's head of GSK Oncology.

I know that brings us to our final question, which is the one I ask every one of our guests.

If you could have dinner with any scientist or innovator, past or present, who would it be and why?

Well, so with Forma, I had the great chance to work with a lot of folks that had kind of grown up in the Genzyme era, Peter Wirth, Marcia Fanucci, Mike Wisga.

And it was great just hearing kind of the stories of Genzyme and the leadership.

When the substance isn't broken down, it accumulates in the spleen, liver, and bone marrow and can cause symptoms including enlarged organs and inflammation.

Lodish helped develop an enzyme replacement therapy for the disease and co-founded Genzyme, which was acquired by Sanofi in 2011.

Fast forward about 30 years or so, it turned out that one of Harvey's grandchildren was diagnosed with Gaucher syndrome.

And so it sort of makes this really compelling story where, you know, grandfather cured his grandson before his grandson was even conceived.

With ultra-rare diseases, there may only be one facility making a particular therapy, so the problem at that facility can quickly become a patient care issue around the world.

We actually saw something similar to this 20 years ago when Genzyme, now Sanofi, with its Gaucher disease treatment.

Uh The good news is that patients in North America appear to be getting their medications, but what's happening in other countries is concerning.

This especially highlights how important it is to have a reliable supply and ideally backup manufacturing capacity for these therapies.

Now back to the show.

Anne is an executive coach and speaker who has advised top leaders at companies, including TripAdvisor, Sanofi Genzyme, and Havas.

Anne serves as an executive coach for Harvard Business School Executive Education and has guest lectured at MIT.

Prior to becoming an executive coach more than a decade ago, Anne served as a senior lead in the advertising industry, where she oversaw a team of 75 employees as SVP of media at Digitas.