If unorthodoxy and discipline could be blended and bottled, Bob Duggan would have another multibillion-dollar product.
For now, his fortunes are focused on an experimental cancer drug that wowed researchers at this month’s World Conference on Lung Cancer, sending the stock of his small Menlo Park-based Summit Therapeutics surging 700% — and Duggan’s net worth to about $16 billion, according to Forbes data.
“Anything is possible, if you put your attention on it. Today’s beliefs become tomorrow’s facts,” said Duggan, an 80-year-old surfer, practicing Scientologist and Atherton resident who, with his former wife, adopted six children in his 50s. Without a college degree or science pedigree, he has transformed two struggling biotech companies into thriving enterprises.
Summit Therapeutics Co-CEO and Chairman Bob Duggan, 80, talks during an interview at his biotech company on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
He has blazed through other disciplines like a meteor, helping build a better chocolate chip cookie, Ethernet node processors and surgical robot.
Now he’s set his sights on cancer, which claimed the life of a son diagnosed with glioblastoma at age 23.
Experts say that far more data is needed to prove the lasting efficacy of Summit’s new drug, an immunotherapy called ivonescimab.
But, in David-and-Goliath fashion, the company’s drug seems to outperform the world’s best selling drug, Keytruda, made by pharmaceutical giant Merck. Data shows that it cut the risk of disease progression in half in people recently diagnosed with a deadly form of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Tumor growth was held off for a median of just over 11 months, compared to almost six months in people given Keytruda. It is now being tested in 18 different cancer trials.
The company, once struggling, is now headquartered on Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley’s Wall Street, tucked between venture capital and private equity firms.
This success, while tentative, is a stunning example of all that is surprising and tumultuous about biotech, an industry where noble pursuits to cure diseases face unlikely odds, with most products failing.
It also shows that those who succeed can strike gold.
The son of an Irish immigrant fleeing poverty, Duggan was born in Oakland, grew up in an $8,000 house next to a cherry orchard at the corner of Bascom Avenue and Newhall Street in west San Jose. His father was a Westinghouse engineer and his mother was a registered nurse who worked at a local cannery. Both parents fed young Duggan’s curiosity and sent him to Catholic schools: St Clair’s, St. Leo’s and St. Francis High School.
Then he ventured far off the traditional path. At UC Santa Barbara and UCLA, he took classes in philosophy, business and whatever else caught his fancy.
Summit Therapeutics Co-CEO and Chairman Bob Duggan, 80, talks during an interview at his biotech company on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
His first company sold embroidery kits to consumers, a $100,000 investment that was later sold for $15 million.
Another early venture started at a shopping mall. While researching the hot dog business, he realized that there was a stronger market for chocolate chip cookies made with chips by Nestlé, which stayed gooey because they used extra cocoa butter. His Long Beach-based Paradise Bakery, whose clients included McDonald’s and Disney World, was sold to Panera for a handsome profit.
A decade ago, the small Sunnyvale biotech company Pharmacyclics was on the ropes, teetering toward bankruptcy. Duggan was brought in and — in biotech’s version of a Hail Mary pass — bought a drug candidate from a rival company, then recruited about a half-dozen scientists to improve it. That product, called Imbruvica, now treats a form of blood cancer.
Duggan sold Pharmacyclics for a stunning $21 billion, an acquisition that now ranks as one of the top 20 pharma deals in history.
“His ability to successfully galvanize businesses around a mission is proven,” said Nathan Vardi, author of the 2023 book “For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug,” about the development of Imbruvica. “He can analyze situations and know when to keep betting on something, and when to move on.”
Initially, “many scientists were very wary of him,” Vardi said. “But on Wall Street, people looked at him very differently. What they saw was a winner, someone with a track record of succeeding again and again and again.”
Duggan speaks in high-octane loops and spirals, often digressing to explain etymology.
Religion — especially Scientology, an esoteric religion in which the faith is revealed to those who invest time and money to master the teachings of the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard — centers his life.
“It’s the study of science, wisdom and knowledge,” he said. Conceding that while “it freaks some people out … it orients you and brings awareness of yourself as a spiritual being.”
To relax, he surfs in Santa Cruz and at his vacation home in west Costa Rica.
“Each wave is a work of art,” Duggan said. “Each wave brings a lot of decisions. Can you catch it? Which way is it breaking? How do you ride it?”
His latest big bet is a $5 billion licensing pact with the China-based biotech Akeso, which created ivonescimab. The drug is exciting because works differently than Keytruda, simultaneously stifling two proteins involved in tumor growth. It’s an approach shared by two competitors, Instil Bio and BioNTech.
“This is quite exciting,” said Dr. Shirish M. Gadgeel, a medical oncologist at the Henry Ford Cancer Institute in Detroit. While the drug needs to be tested in a larger and more diverse patient population, he called the results “quite striking,” saying, “It may change the standard of care in the coming years.”
Dr. Heather Wakelee, a lung cancer expert at Stanford Medicine, said while the new drug could prove to be an “important breakthrough,” more testing is needed. She noted the latest trial was relatively small — about 400 patients — and that it was limited to China, so the drug needs to be tested on a more diverse patient population. Wakelee also said it was unclear from the trial results whether the drug can boost survival rates or extend patient lifespans.
“Well-defined problems can be solved,” said Duggan. “Humans are problem solvers. Cancer is a multifactorial problem, for sure. But when you define it well, it can be resolved.”
Summit Therapeutics Co-CEO and Chairman Bob Duggan, 80, at his biotech company on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
Staff Writer Ethan Varian contributed to this report.