Achievements
Levinson's strategy let Genentech compete with the international pharmaceutical giants in selected markets and showed that good science can be profitable. Company’s total product sales for 2006 were $7,640 million, a 39 % increase over $5,488 million in 2005. Under Levinson's leadership Genentech made more than most biotech companies have brought to market during their entire existence. Levinson has made mostly right bets for Genentech - championing its science, creating a stream of new drugs, and attracting and retaining the best big-brain bioscience talent. He was honoured with several awards among which are Corporate Leadership Award in Science, Irvington Institute, 1999; Corporate Leadership Award, National Breast Cancer Coalition, 1999 and was named one of the Best Managers of 2003, BusinessWeek.
Career Highlights
Beginning in childhood, Levinson was motivated by the thrill of discovering how things work. An early influence was Carl Sagan's book Intelligent Life in the Universe, especially the last third of the volume, which covers the requirements for life at a molecular level.
After receiving a BS in molecular biology from the University of Washington in 1972, Levinson went to Princeton University, where he earned a PhD in biochemistry in 1977. He then took a postdoctoral position (1977–1980) at the Microbiology Department of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to work in the lab of J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus, winners of the 1989 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of certain viruses involved in converting normal genes into cancer-causing genes.
In 1980 Herbert W. Boyer, a professor at UCSF and cofounder of Genentech, recruited Levinson to join the company. Levinson's original intent was to stay at Genentech just long enough to gain unique laboratory experiences and then return to academia. But he thrived in the work-hard and play-hard atmosphere of the research labs at Genentech. Top management saw his lab experience and infectious enthusiasm for research as the attributes needed to lead a growing biotechnology company. He was promoted steadily through the ranks and became Genentech CEO in 1995. Under his direction the company became a major force in its industry.
Leadership Experience
Under Levinson's leadership, Genentech began examining research projects in detail to rate them based on scientific feasibility, medical need, market potential, market protection, and manufacturing economy. He gave priority to developing new treatments in three areas: immunology, cancer, and vascular biology (blood vessels and their role in disease). Genentech distinguished itself from the competition by its science and its focused management.
The secret of Genentech's commercial success is its unique corporate culture. And Art Levinson is the one who protects its mission, focus, and culture from “evil ghosts”: bureaucracy, idle talks, bloated discourses, mind-numbing. In the world of Big Pharma, he remains an oddball. He shuns the CEO spotlight, rarely accepting invitations to speak at industry events. Levinson is fond of having fun. For a lab photo, he once showed up dressed as a hunter. His point: You need a hunter's instincts when pursuing the causes of cancer.
Genentech's sprawling South San Francisco campus, where casual dress is the norm, in many ways has the feel of a university. "We're extremely nonhierarchical," Levinson says. "We're not wearing ties. People don't call us doctor. We don't have special dining rooms." In Genentech status is conveyed not by snagging sonorous title or the biggest office. It's defined by matching wits and taking chances. Levinson is trying to protect the company from people preoccupied with salary, title, and personal advancement and to attract real talent.
What intrigued Levinson early on and continues to motivate him—besides the research—is the challenge of creating a company that is dedicated to basic research yet able to turn a profit. One of the Levinson's goals is to make Genentech the No. 1 U.S. oncology company on the basis of sales. Though ambitious, those goals speak to his hard-driving, competitive nature. In Levinson's office sits a picture of the 1973 finish of the Belmont stakes, as jockey Ron Turcotte rides Triple Crown-winner Secretariat and turns his head to see a cluster of horses 31 lengths behind.
Background Links
Arthur D. Levinson, Ph. D.: Genentech corporate information
Arthur D. Levinson, Ph. D.: Information from Forbes
The best managers of 2003: Arthur Levinson, BusinessWeek, January 12, 2004
Leading Biotechnology into the 21st Century, Newsletter of the University of Washington, 2000
Betsy Morris, Genentech: The best place to work now, Fortune, January 20, 2006
