George B. Rathmann
Co-founder 1980Background
George Rathmann earned his PhD in physical chemistry from Princeton University and spent more than a decade at Abbott Laboratories, where he rose to become Vice President of Research and Development. Before founding Amgen, he had a brief tenure at Litton Bionetics and Abbott Diagnostics, giving him rare industry experience combining rigorous research management with commercial pharmaceutical operations. His intellectual range — spanning chemistry, biology, and business — was precisely what venture capitalist William Bowes needed in a founding CEO for a biotech company. Rathmann brought not just scientific credibility but extraordinary people management skills, recruiting dozens of top scientists away from established pharmaceutical companies and universities to join a startup in suburban Los Angeles.
Role at Amgen Inc.
Amgen, originally incorporated as Applied Molecular Genetics, was founded in 1980 not by a single visionary scientist, but by a calculated syndicate of venture capitalists and academics trying to commercialize the brand-new science of recombinant DNA. The driving force behind the formation was William K. (Bill) Bowes, a prominent San Francisco venture capitalist, alongside colleagues from the Bay Area. They recruited George Rathmann, a physical chemist and executive at Abbott Laboratories, to serve as the founding CEO. Rathmann was the true architect of Amgen's culture and success. While other early biotech companies (like Genentech) focused heavily on high-profile, academic research that often failed to translate into profitable products, Rathmann focused Amgen on applied science—specifically, using recombinant DNA to solve unmet medical needs that could generate significant revenue. He assembled a legendary team of brilliant, young scientists and established a collaborative, egalitarian culture in Thousand Oaks, California, far away from the intense academic rivalries of Boston and San Francisco. The foundational breakthrough for the company occurred in 1983 when a young Taiwanese-born researcher named Fu-Kuen Lin cloned the human gene for erythropoietin (EPO), a protein that stimulates the production of red blood cells. This discovery was considered almost impossible by rival companies due to the sheer complexity of the genome. Lin's discovery led directly to the creation of Epogen, a drug that cured the horrific anemia suffered by dialysis patients. Approved by the FDA in 1989, Epogen became one of the most successful and profitable drugs in the history of medicine, single-handedly transforming Amgen from a scrappy, cash-starved startup into the undisputed financial titan of the global biotechnology industry.