Gen­zyme founder, biotech en­tre­pre­neur and in­dus­try leg­end Hen­ri Ter­meer dies

Hen­ri Ter­meer, one of the great­est and most suc­cess­ful vi­sion­ar­ies in biotech, has died. Ac­cord­ing to the Boston Globe, Ter­meer col­lapsed at his Mar­ble­head home on Fri­day evening. He was 71.

Ter­meer’s lega­cy rests on grow­ing Gen­zyme in­to a world leader in or­phan drug R&D, de­vel­op­ing drugs for tiny pa­tient pop­u­la­tions, sav­ing lives and pi­o­neer­ing an ag­gres­sive pric­ing strat­e­gy that made the field a pop­u­lar fo­cus among a whole gen­er­a­tion of star­tups. (The 10 most ex­pen­sive ther­a­pies on the plan­et are all or­phan drugs.) Sanofi CEO Chris Viehbach­er saw the val­ue, and bought the com­pa­ny for about $20 bil­lion in 2011, af­ter Ter­meer had run the com­pa­ny for 30 years — a rare feat in this in­dus­try.

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