Telltales Founder Stories: Vertex Pharmaceuticals
How Joshua Boger's Vision Transformed Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Patient Care
The following document was written by Holly Miller, and is intended for research purposes only. It does not constitute research advice. 
Vertex Pharmaceuticals' rise from a small-startup to a major player in the biotechnology industry is deeply intertwined with the vision of Joshua Boger. From the age of thirteen, Boger set out with the goal to “help rid man of the burden of disease” through medical research. Finishing first in his class in his high school in Concord, North Carolina and again in undergrad at Wesleyan University, Boger was primed to find success in whichever career he chose. Staying true to his teenage goals, he went on to graduate Harvard University with a Ph.D in chemistry. After completing his postdoctoral research fellowship in Strasbourg, France, Boger went on to work at Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories under the recommendation of his undergraduate mentor and former president of the aforementioned company, Mark Tishler. By the time he was in his thirties in the late 1980s, Boger had become Merck’s senior director of basic chemistry1.
At the time, the use of computers in pharmaceutical research was very limited. Aside from chart recorders and rotary evaporators, automated and computationally enabled devices were not present in the lab. As a young chemist interested in finding a use for automation in pharmaceutical research, Boger would bring his own thirty-five pound personal computer into work everyday. He used the computer to compile data and perform more complicated computations, tasks that, up until that point, were done manually2.
As he continued to work at Merck, Boger identified a key problem in the way the company conducted research. Namely, Merck’s research was scattered into functionally separate academic departments, with researchers in molecular biology and chemistry, for example, working independently of each other. Boger believed that research problems are not solvable without interdisciplinary collaboration. As he stated in an interview, “the academic matrix as the main organizational unit was hiding the fact that interdisciplinary work was where the action was.”3 After identifying the potential need for interdisciplinary research, Boger proposed that Merck organize a new integrated department dedicated to this collaboration. Though it came as a surprise to many at the company, the head of research at the time agreed to attempt Boger’s idea. Although Boger had the support of upper-level executives, according to him, many members of intermediate management were opposed to his endeavor and attempted to slow down progress4.
After hearing about Boger’s goals at Merck Sharp & Dohme, a seed venture capitalist by the name of Kevin Kinsella approached Boger and advised him that he could be more successful at integrating these disciplines outside of Merck. Eventually, after months of conversation with Kinsella, Boger’s desire to move more quickly toward an integrated department led him to leave Merck and start Vertex Pharmaceuticals in 19895. The Boston-based company went public in 19916. The first major hurdle Boger encountered was the issue of fundraising. In a field in which it is typical for a decade to pass without seeing profit, Boger’s main fundraising responsibility was to convince prospective shareholders of the company’s long-term potential. This was not always an easy task, as Boger stated he “went to forty venture capitalists in San Francisco” and when none invested, he moved onto another city, ultimately asking one-hundred and seven venture capitalists for investments7. Boger asked potential investors for $2.7 billion, and was clear from the start about his mission, to “make transformational medicines, not to focus on shareholders alone.”8
Boger believed that centering the company’s values and mission would lead them to prosperity. Boger’s leadership philosophy was less profit-focused than some other companies; he says, “the way to maximize profit in the pharmaceutical industry is to not focus on making a profit… It is to maximize your products’ medical benefits.”9 Throughout his tenure as CEO and his time on the board, Boger maintained this belief, that his is a “business for the people,” and his ultimate goal of “changing the definition of what it means to have a disease,” is his first priority10. It was this patient-oriented mindset that led Joshua Boger and Vertex Pharmaceuticals to its first major breakthrough. Amprenavir, patented in 1992 under the brand name Agenerase, is a protease inhibitor that prevents viral replication by interfering with the HIV-1 enzymes that produce viral particles11. In conjunction with GlaxoSmithKline, Vertex got approval for the medical use of Agenerase from the FDA in 1999 and made over $1 billion after the first year of production. Although Agenerase was discontinued in 2004 in favor of the prodrug Lexiva, its early success proved the validity of Boger’s developmental approach12.
A year before Agenerase put Vertex on the map, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation invested $150 million in the company in order to fund Kalydeco, a medication that was innovative because it treats the underlying cause of the disease, rather than the symptoms. A dozen years later in January 2012, the FDA approved Kalydeco13. The medication treats patients who have the G551D mutation in the CFTR gene, a mutation that affects 4-5% of cystic fibrosis patients. Patients with the G551D mutation have a dysfunctional CFTR protein on the cell surface. The drug works by facilitating the transport of chloride through the cell membrane, which leads to an improvement in lung functionality, thus increasing a patient’s life expectancy. With a yearly cost to patients of $300,000, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation ultimately received $3.3 billion from selling the rights to the drug’s royalties14. Although the sticker price of $300,000 seems contradictory to the founder’s mission to place the needs of patients first, Vertex was able to make the drug accessible to those who may not be able to afford it. By paying copays for patients with a yearly income under $150,000, the company was able to stay true to its mission while also ensuring funding for future research endeavors.
In more recent years, Vertex has collaborated with CRISPR Therapeutics to manufacture and commercialize CTX001, a therapy that could potentially cure sickle cell disease beta-thalassemia by elevating levels of fetal hemoglobin in the patient’s red blood cells, thereby alleviating transfusion requirements and reducing sickle crises15. As Vertex continues to further groundbreaking research, Joshua Boger’s vision of patient care and interdisciplinary collaboration remain central to the company’s ethos, providing a framework for the place humanitarianism has in running a financially prosperous company.
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