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Quotes about Genentech from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"Both Herceptin and Avastin are made by genentech Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area company that is doing very well, thank you. The reason they are so expensive is that they are new, and there are no generic versions available. So genentech can charge whatever it wants, without competition, for these life-saving drugs....As a result of the high cost of Herceptin and Avastin, I am going to hit my lifetime max of $1 million on my health insurance before the end of 2007." Beware of arthritis drugs Do Arthritis Drugs Cause Cancer?" - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"Most of the schools and parents did not learn that the two foundations had received most of their funding for the school screenings from genentech and another hormone manufacturer. The foundations said they were not promoting the drugs, but only trying to get children treatment. Since then, the Magic Foundation had continued to accept money from genentech and other corporate sellers of hormones to supplement the membership dues and donations from the public that it receives." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"Genentech. In 2007, the drug sold a whooping $3.5 billion, with $2.3 billion in the United States. One course of treatment with Avastin can cost $100,000 per year. If a drug sells this well, it must be a very effective medicine, or so you could believe. However, when you read the following statement made by genentech on their Avastin web site, www.avastin.com, you may wonder why it is prescribed at all: "Currently, no data are available that demonstrate an improvement in disease-related symptoms or increased survival with Avastin in breast cancer." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"Relman twenty years ago (Relman 1984) when, as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, he became aware that authors of an article on the effectiveness of tpa (the thrombolytic biotechnology product that did far more for Genentech's stock than for patients with myocardial infarctions) were also monitoring the trial and held stock in genentech. However, declaration was hardly a solution, as it assumed that authors could identify conflicts and that readers could interpret them. There is nothing straightforward about this." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.)

"However, a subsequent independent investigation reported that six out of the eight experts who supported the upgrade in the recommendations had financial ties to genentech. In addition, contributions from genentech to the AHA totaled $11 million between 1991 and 2001, including $2.5 million to help build the AHA's new headquarters in Dallas. This investigative work provides a rare look into the financial relationships among the American Heart Association, a drug manufacturer, and respected medical experts." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"Relman twenty years ago (Relman 1984) when, as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, he became aware that authors of an article on the effectiveness of tpa (the thrombolytic biotechnology product that did far more for Genentech's stock than for patients with myocardial infarctions) were also monitoring the trial and held stock in genentech. However, declaration was hardly a solution, as it assumed that authors could identify conflicts and that readers could interpret them. There is nothing straightforward about this." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.)

"The term "brain attack" was introduced into the lexicon by a marketing campaign sponsored by the biotech company genentech. Genen-tech makes an expensive clot-busting drug, Activase (generic name, alteplase), that has been used, and perhaps overused, in the United States to treat heart attacks. It is now being pushed as a breakthrough in the treatment of ischemic strokes, at the cost of $2700 per patient treated." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"The ad firm that created the game for genentech said it worked better than an advertisement. "This ad works wonders because, well, it's not an ad," explained the staff at GSW Worldwide. The goal of the video game, they said, was to get "toddlers to teens . . . immersed in the right solutions." Not to be outdone, Pfizer, the maker of another brand of growth hormone, had created a storybook featuring a puppy called Max, as well as a cuddly toy version of the dog, which children could use to practice injecting themselves with the drug." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"However, when you read the following statement made by genentech on their Avastin web site, www.avastin.com, you may wonder why it is prescribed at all: "Currently, no data are available that demonstrate an improvement in disease-related symptoms or increased survival with Avastin in breast cancer." The answer may lie in the fact that Avastin produces some of the worst side-effects a drug can produce, and that is good business. The thousands of doctors, hospital administrators, health agencies that endorsed this killer drug either fell for the scam, or welcomed it." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"Since then, the Magic Foundation had continued to accept money from genentech and other corporate sellers of hormones to supplement the membership dues and donations from the public that it receives. The foundation also had continued to recommend hormone injections to short children and their parents and describe the drugs in ways the manufacturers could not do without breaking the law. A story published in the foundation's glossy magazine that I picked up at a pediatricians' conference in 2005 was entitled "Me and My Growth Hormone." The story began, "I was short." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"The next step in Genentech's questionable ethics and launch of a biotech business is clouded because the next partner sued for payments related to further patents and development of molecular genetic technology.3 The situation becomes even murkier and the greed obviously more profound when, as explained by Sherrie F. Nachman in the American Lawyer, genentech and Eli Lilly sue each other over intellectual property rights connected to rDNA insulins and growth hormones. The two companies agreed to disagree about property rights, opting first and foremost to concentrate on generating wealth." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"The reason they are so expensive is that they are new, and there are no generic versions available. So genentech can charge whatever it wants, without competition, for these life-saving drugs....As a result of the high cost of Herceptin and Avastin, I am going to hit my lifetime max of $1 million on my health insurance before the end of 2007." Beware of arthritis drugs Do Arthritis Drugs Cause Cancer? This is the title of an article published in the New York Times, June 5, 2008." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"If they do well, however, they can do very well indeed. genentech, for example, has developed a number of new cancer drugs, including Avastin. In a letter to stockholders in its 2004 annual report, CEO Arthur D. Levinson boasted how total operating revenues had increased to $4-6 billion, more than doubling since 2001. 'Out financial position also remains strong, with approximately $2.8 billion in unrestricted cash and investments,' he added.42 One of the reasons genentech, which is now 60% owned by Roche of Switzerland, has done well is that it takes risks to nurture cteativity." - Jacky Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda (Get the book.)

"Both these drugs were made by genentech, which posted a rise in profit in 2005 and 2006 of more than 60 percent a year. And Mr. Brennan's company, AstraZeneca, had been charging $1,800 a month for a cancer drug called Iressa when federal researchers stopped a study of the drug because it was doing nothing to lengthen lives. AstraZeneca made almost $400 million in 2004 by selling this ineffective drug, which was also blamed for killing dozens of patients with its side effects." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"Jeanne Lenzer, an enterprising freelance medical journalist, published a piece in the British MedicalJournal laying out some of the scientific arguments, but claiming that one of the possible reasons for the Guideline's preference for Alteplase treatment was a major financial association between the AHA and genentech, the manufacturers of the drug. Lenzer pointed out that the AHA had received 11 million dollars from genentech in the prior ten years, and that six of the eight guideline panelists had ties to genentech or its marketing partner, Boehringer Ingelheim." - Jerome P. Kassirer, On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health (Get the book.)

"That was the solution promulgated by Arnold Relman twenty years ago ("Dealing with Conflicts of Interest," 1984), when, as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, he became aware that authors of an article on the effectiveness of tpa (the thrombolytic biotechnology product that did far more for Genentech's stock than for patients with myocardial infarctions) were also monitoring the trial and held stock in genentech. Declaration was hardly a solution, however, since it assumed that authors could identify conflicts and that readers could interpret them." - Nortin M. Hadler, The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System (Get the book.)

"Especially, investments in genentech and Biogen are the talk of the day. Oil was once called black gold; pills are the new white gold. The best-selling product, Zocor,3,1 was worth $6.6 billion in 2001. Approximately $300 billion are earned each year when it comes to pills. To summarize, altogether "the industry has been the most profitable industry in America for each of the past ten years." The years 2005, 2006 and 2007 didn't change that picture. Who gets the advantages of that?" - Kenneth W Thomas, Ron Gilbert, Gerd Schaller, Side Effects: The Hidden Agenda of the Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel (Get the book.)

"Nachman in the American Lawyer, genentech and Eli Lilly sue each other over intellectual property rights connected to rDNA insulins and growth hormones. The two companies agreed to disagree about property rights, opting first and foremost to concentrate on generating wealth. Both are still involved with lawsuits regarding proprietary information and UC-SF.4 As a juror, you must understand that American tax dollars, and not industry's venture capital, was paramount in bringing this technology to fruition. In the early 1980s a company called genentech was venturing into the first rDNA programs." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"BGH was subsequently synthesized by genentech Inc. 1981: genentech sold rBGH rights to Monsanto Co. 1982: Monsanto commenced long term milk production (efficacy) trials on cows injected daily with rBGH. In the same year, the FDA commenced review of Monsanto files on health effects of rBGH. 1985: With FDA approval, Monsanto initiated large-scale efficacy trials on rBGH, in close collaboration with indentured scientists in nationwide land grant Colleges and Universities, with sale of rBGH milk to the uninformed public." - Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking (Get the book.)

"In addition, contributions from genentech to the AHA totaled $11 million between 1991 and 2001, including $2.5 million to help build the AHA's new headquarters in Dallas. This investigative work provides a rare look into the financial relationships among the American Heart Association, a drug manufacturer, and respected medical experts." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"In the early 1980s a company called genentech was venturing into the first rDNA programs. It was reported that as a fledgling company, genentech encouraged an employee —a researcher at a tax-supported university — to steal the original cultures used by the company. These cultures, and the employee's former position at the university, gave him knowledge and access to the cultures, setting the entire process in motion. Obfuscating this tale of theft and deception, Eli Lilly entered the picture, securing the rights to the process of rDNA insulin-production for themselves." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"When it was announced that the new anti-cancer drug Avas-tin, when combined with chemotherapy, resulted in lung cancer patients living four months longer, Genentech's stock rose dramatically and nearly $17 billion was pumped into the company. [Associated Press, March 29, 2005] Commercial interests dominate the cancer industry today. Most cancer patients are oblivious to how they have become pawns for Wall Street. If a real cure for cancer was discovered, Wall Street would collapse. Drug stocks prop up the entire stock market." - Bill Sardi, You Don't Have to be Afraid of Cancer Anymore (Get the book.)

"These drugs take medicine into a whole new pricing league. When genentech announced in February 2004 that Avastin would cost around $44,000 per patient per year, it was more than double some analysts' predictions.10 The price in the UK, at £24,000 ($43,200) per patient per year, either reflects a very strong pound or is very slightly cheaper. Erbitux costs $10,000 a month, meanwhile. These prices differ only marginally around the world. Then there are the actual gains to consider. " - Jacky Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda (Get the book.) "Dr Bob Mass, Genentech's director of bio-oncology, told Scrip Magazine there was a clear incentive to push the idea of people taking several drugs at once. 'More people on a double therapy could make a real impact on sales,' he said.26 What people are prepared to pay, on the other side of the equation, is almost impossible to know. The costs soon add up, however, if people take two or even three drugs at a time." - Jacky Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda (Get the book.) "One of the reasons genentech, which is now 60% owned by Roche of Switzerland, has done well is that it takes risks to nurture cteativity. Napoleone Ferrara, Avastin's originating scientist, said he was only able to discover how new blood vessels grow to feed a turnout with nutrients because he had been given the time to do so,43 describing how it is company policy that a quarter of researchers' time should be spent on projects of their own choosing. Avastin's launch was the most successful in US oncology history, earning $545 million in its first ten months on the US market. " - Jacky Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda (Get the book.)

"Genentech sold rBGH rights to Monsanto Co. 1982: Monsanto commenced long term milk production (efficacy) trials on cows injected daily with rBGH. In the same year, the FDA commenced review of Monsanto files on health effects of rBGH. 1985: With FDA approval, Monsanto initiated large-scale efficacy trials on rBGH, in close collaboration with indentured scientists in nationwide land grant Colleges and Universities, with sale of rBGH milk to the uninformed public." - Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking (Get the book.) "Beier, former head of government affairs for genentech, which patented rBGH and sold its rights to Monsanto, now Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Gore. ¦ Carol Tucker Foreman, Monsanto Biotech Lobbyist and Director of the Agribusiness Industry Funded Public Voice to Clinton's Global Consultative Forum as the "Consumer Advocate." ¦ L. Val Giddings, former USDA biotechnology regulator negotiator, now Vice President for Food and Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)." - Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking (Get the book.)

"With mostly good news, stock prices of genentech, Monsanto, Pioneer, DuPont, and other GMO manufacturers soared in the bull market for tech stocks from 1990 to 2001. Affected by the propaganda as well as affecting the propaganda, Wall Street wildly supported genetic engineering. The stockholders and stockbrokers saw genetic modification as a potential huge return on investment for a wide range of genetically altered products." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.)

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