How did biotech become a Hollywood supervillain?
It's become cinematic tradition to treat biopharma as the bad guy, pushing ethical limits in pursuit of profits. Actual industry scientists are not amused.
Family movie night can be fraught in biotech households.
Earlier this month, John Crowley, CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, cued up “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” as a refresher before the debut of its blockbuster sequel. Soon his living room played host to a man with roughly his job, working at a firm not unlike his, but whose greed and moral depravity made him the movie’s villain.
“Here we go, dad,” Crowley recalled the teenage John Jr. saying. “Another evil biotech company ruining the world.”
“Apes” is the latest in a long line of movies to find a ready-made baddie in biopharma’s push-the-envelope labs and bounteous balance sheets. It’s a cinematic tradition that’s often frustrating to the industry’s thousands of
