Before Genentech, protein drugs, although recognizably potent, had been notoriously difficult to produce. Insulin, for instance, was produced by grinding up cow and pig innards into a soup and then extracting the protein from the mix—one pound of insulin from every eight thousand pounds of pancreas. Growth hormone, used to treat a form of dwarfism, was extracted from pituitary glands dissected out of thousands of human cadavers. Clotting drugs to treat bleeding disorders came from liters of human blood. Recombinant DNA technology allowed Genentech to synthesize human proteins de novo: rather
...more
