introduced me to the joy of

science at the leading edge of science.

I had no idea what real science was and the privilege of being a physician.

Once I was introduced to science and the responsibility of another person's life, everything changed for me.

I knew what I was supposed to do.

I was just finishing medical school and I was on a hematology team and we had a young man referred to us with an abdominal mass.

And the local physician thought it was Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Tell us what went through your mind to start a nonprofit.

Can you reflect on what industry was doing well at the time, and then what was lacking that led you to set up Ionis?

Well, I went to Bristol, um, because I had a patient that was my age who was referred to us with an abdominal mass.

And an abdominal mass in a young man is a testicle cancer until proven otherwise, and indeed, he had a testicle cancer.

And, um, we had to tell him that he was going to be dead in six months.

That's a tough thing to tell anybody.

We offered him this experimental drug called bleomycin.

I've never heard of it, and had this bizarre structure and this unusual mechanism of action and, uh, very odd toxicities.

I know n-Lawm worked with the FDA on, on building that framework, and I guess sort of on both these fronts, that probably also has an impact on access in moving the ball forward so that these technologies, once the technology's been developed, can also again reach these patients who need it.