In 1980, New York stockbroker David Blech and his brother Isaac partnered with Dr. Robert Nowinski of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle to start Genetic Systems, focused on producing antibodies to diagnose diseases. The Blech brothers raised $40 million in start-up costs, and the company went public in 1981. Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired the company, Seattle's first major biotech company, in 1986, and would close Genetic Systems in 1997. The Blech brothers would go on to help fund other Seattle-area biotech startups like Cell Therapeutics Inc. and Icos Corp.
This image shows Genetic Systems workers Tina Mathiesen, left, and Janette Vivion testing research samples at Genetic Systems facility in Redmond.
Caption information source: "He helped create the biotech boom and when it went bust, so did he," by Duff Wilson and David Heath, The Seattle Times, 2001, http://old.seattletimes.com/uninformed_consent/financier/story1.html; "Birth of a Health-Care Concern," by N.R. Kleinfield, July 11, 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/11/business/birth-of-a-health-care-concern.html; "Genetically refined antibodies ride new wave of potent drugs," Luke Timmerman, Seattle Times, October 14, 2002, p. A1. Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.
