On this Rare Dis­ease Day, let's all com­mit to help­ing rec­og­nize the life and work of biotech gi­ant Hen­ri A. Ter­meer

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Last May the Cam­bridge com­mu­ni­ty and en­tire bio­phar­ma in­dus­try suf­fered a tremen­dous loss with the un­ex­pect­ed pass­ing of Hen­ri A. Ter­meer. Hen­ri was a for­mer chair­man, pres­i­dent and CEO of Gen­zyme Cor­po­ra­tion for near­ly three decades pri­or to its ac­qui­si­tion by the French drug mak­er Sanofi. Re­tir­ing from Gen­zyme in 2011, af­ter his 28-year tenure, Hen­ri led the com­pa­ny’s growth from a small start-up of 20 to 12,000 em­ploy­ees glob­al­ly serv­ing pa­tients in more than 90 coun­tries all while es­tab­lish­ing Mass­a­chu­setts as the mec­ca of biotech. He was known for his ser­vice to the rare dis­ease com­mu­ni­ty and his un­sur­passed en­tre­pre­neur­ial lead­er­ship that spurred the rise of an in­dus­try ded­i­cat­ed to in­no­v­a­tive treat­ments for or­phan dis­eases. Hen­ri set a stan­dard, al­ways putting pa­tients first, and he forged the path for build­ing a sus­tain­able rare dis­ease busi­ness, with many – in­clud­ing Al­ny­lam – fol­low­ing his foot­steps.  He was a men­tor, a col­league, and a friend.

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