September 21, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
BOSTON – The principles behind a film adaptation of the early days of Vertex Pharmaceuticals are looking to add some heavyweight Hollywood gravitas to the story by bringing on board some Boston-bred talent, such as Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg to play a role in front of, or behind the camera.
A celluloid adaptation of Barry Werth’s “The Billion Dollar Molecule: One Company’s Quest for the Perfect Drug,” is in predevelopment. Massachusetts filmmaker Yael Beals optioned the rights to Werth’s 1994 book. However, what was once thought to be a feature film, will now become a multi-season series, the Boston Business Journal reported this morning. The book tells the story of Vertex, from its founding by Joshua Boger to the quest for drug development based on rational design. Boger left his role at Merck to found Vertex as a company that would design drugs based on the knowledge of its biological target—a risky move at the time.
In July, Beals said she found the story inspirational and wanted to share an adaptation that “help people see scientists in a new way.”
According to the website Beals set up about the film, the film aims to show audiences “the personal struggles and triumphs of these pioneers in the world of biotech.” The story focuses on how the Vertex team worked diligently to develop therapies for diseases such as hepatitis C, HIV and cystic fibrosis. On the site Beals said the film will show how scientists are the true heroes of the world due to their tireless efforts to “tackle the world’s most devastating health problems.” In a new interview with the Journal, Beals said she and her partners decided to make the film a series because “the characters are too complex for a movie-length treatment.” Because of the complexity of the characters and the work done at Vertex, Beals said she was hoping to turn the story into a six-season show. With a series, it’s also possible that other players in the Boston biotech hub may surface in the show.
Beals is looking to sell the show to an outlet like HBO or AMC, the Journal said. A streaming service like Netflix could also be a choice. Beals, along with other Boston-area filmmakers Mark Rennella and Jim Gallant have been developing a pilot episode to sell, the Journal said. Financing remains a question. Earlier this summer Beals planned several events to raise funds for the project.
This is the second pharma film to be talked about in recent months. Earlier this summer Jennifer Lawrence was reported to have signed on to play the title character in the story of Elizabeth Holmes, the embattled founder and chief executive officer of blood-testing company Theranos. The planned film is the project of writer/ director Adam McKay, best known for his “The Big Short” script, which won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay earlier this year.
