Finalist
Life Sciences
Thomas Schall is amazed at how his company performed in 2009. As founder, president and CEO of ChemoCentryx Inc., a company that focuses on the development and discovery of medicines, he could have just been happy that the company was profitable in a year where many weren’t. But it was more than just that.
His business had demonstrated that their new medicine for Crohn’s disease, an extremely debilitating and chronic form of inflammatory bowel disease, could actually get patients into clinical remission at an unprecedented rate, while doing it in a safe manner, unlike other therapies, which tend to have large safety concerns and aren’t as effective in the long term.
On top of that, Schall expanded his company’s clinical pipeline even further last year, having successfully completed three phase-one clinical trials of three new experimental drugs. He also initiated a phase-two clinical trial for a new drug for rheumatoid arthritis and prepared to start a phase-two clinical trial for an entirely new drug for Type 2 diabetes.
But all of this success didn’t happen overnight. Instead, Schall built ChemoCentryx on key sustaining principles when he founded it 13 years ago. He believes that great science drives great medicine and that he and his team have a moral obligation to use great science and employ their knowledge and talents to discover new medicines. The other key principles are that the medicines they discover should be differentiated from others in the market, that they will find ways to bring new medicines into clinical practice faster and cheaper, that their products will be more capital effective, and they will adhere to a philosophy of ethical drug development. By taking this approach, he has grown a successful and sustainable company.
How to reach: ChemoCentryx Inc., (650) 210-2900 or www.chemocentryx.com
