In his 25-year-tenure at Gilead, first as research chief and then as the boss, Martin led the development of the most widely prescribed HIV pill and, last year, a treatment for the liver virus hepatitis C that can cure 90% of patients and generated $12 billion in revenue in its first year on the market.
It wasn’t always so easy. Gilead’s first HIV pill failed in 1999. “It is part of the business,” he tells FORBES. He says it takes “an even keel” to run a biotech company, and that he’s prone neither to worry about failure nor excitement about momentary success. The key, he says, is focus on science. The R&D chief, chief operating officer, also came up through its research labs. “The top three guys at Gilead can all communicate with chemical structures, and drug interactions with enzymes, and understand how drugs work at that intuitive scientific level,” Martin says.
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