Lessons from 1980s Genentech: how open science culture beat secrecy in biotech's zero-sum IP era
kenbwork · x · 2026-09-04
The author invokes Genentech as the flagship industrial research organization whose open-science, free-publishing culture rests on a contrarian foundation. In the 1980s, secrecy and zero-sum IP fear ran far hotter in biotech than today: Kary Mullis discovered PCR at Cetus in 1983 (while tripping on acid) but it sat unpublished for two years awaiting patents; Amgen's recombinant EPO was secretly filed in 1983, partially published in 1985, and fully described only on patent approval in 1987. Genentech itself was a scrappy startup of scientists plus one finance brother. The takeaway for engineers today: Genentech-style openness, not siloes, was the long-term edge — a useful mirror for AI's open vs. closed debate.
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