Gorski describes one scene—inspired by real life events—in which the Crowley family and another family were invited to speak at the company to employees.
“It was a little disappointing in that [the film] made it seem that this fictitious company was not patient-focused and it took this moment [for employees at the company] to realize that lives were at stake,” Gorski says. “That’s something that’s on our mind every day through every trial that’s done here.”
But she acknowledges that artistic considerations sometimes overrule the truth in Hollywood.
“Of course, you need some sort of villain in every movie,” she adds.
Crowley says that the company portrayed in the film is a fictional adaptation and attributes any potential negative connotations to cinematic license.
“In the film, just like in real life, there are no bad people and there are no bad companies. There’s just a very bad disease,” Crowley says.
Additionally, when a 90-minute movie portrays a decade of life, some details are lost in translation, Gorski points out. The limited timeframe led to the compression of some details.
For instance, Ford’s character Robert Stonehill is inspired primarily by scientist William Canfield but is actually a composite of many scientists. Gorski says she is disappointed that no tribute was paid to many of the other scientists, families, and academic institutions that contributed to the development of a treatment.
“In any scientific breakthrough, it’s not the result of one individual or one moment,” Gorski says.
DRIVING INNOVATION
Although the liberty of cinematic license may have shifted the development of Myozyme to Seattle, Genzyme’s real-life location in Cambridge is a crucial resource to the company and indicative of the city’s central role in the biotechnology industry.
Between 430 and 450 biotechnology companies are headquartered in Massachusetts, according to Peter J. Abair, Director of Economic Development at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
Abair calls Cambridge the “core” of the Massachusetts biotechnology industry, explaining that Massachusetts is one of three biotechnology hotspots in the country, along with the San Francisco and San Diego areas.
Crowley, now the chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. a biopharmaceutical company in New Jersey, says that with even medium and larger companies cutting back on research and development and many smaller companies having gone out of business, he expects “[to] see five to seven years from now a huge gap in medical investments...a drought.”
Crowley says that there is a need to foster biotechnology not just at the state level, as seen in Massachusetts, but also on a national platform.
“I think [it’s] the one thing that’s absent from the health care debate. You hear about greater distribution to more people, cutting costs, etc...But I don’t know how you can reform the new healthcare system in America and not talk about innovation, driving new technologies,” Crowley says.
—Staff writer Michelle B. Timmerman can be reached at mtimmerman@college.harvard.edu.