Regeneron's George Yancopoulos Becomes Pharma's First Billionaire R&D Chief

Twenty-Seven Years Ago George Yancopoulos was a scientific superstar, a professor of biology at Columbia at age 28. But his father, a first-generation Greek immigrant, kept complaining about how little academia paid.

So Yancopoulos, now 55, signed on with a nascent Tarrytown, N.Y.-based biotech firm called Regeneron–and has since led the invention of four approved drugs and a technology platform designed to invent more. Shares in Regeneron have increased a startling 2,240% over the past five years, and Yancopoulos’ stake has made him a billionaire, the first pharmaceutical research chief ever to hit ten figures. “We were a tiny company, but we had the most powerful technology,” he says. “And sometimes that’s what counts.”

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