Ivor Royston

Ivor Royston is an American oncologist, researcher, scientist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, recognized for his efforts to develop treatments for multiple disease targets and to fund biotechnology companies with promising science, technology or medicines.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He speaks regularly at healthcare conferences and symposia throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.[7][8]

Ivor Royston
Born
Retford, England
Scientific career
FieldsOncologist, researcher, scientist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist

One of Royston's most significant achievements may be his successful efforts to partner academic medical research with industry to take potential treatments more quickly from the benchtop to the bedside.[1][2][3][5]

After co-founding the first biotechnology company in San Diego, California, he and his associates went on to form or invest in dozens of other biotechs, laying the foundation of the region's thriving biotech cluster, one of the three largest in the United States. As a venture capitalist, Royston invests in start-up companies that have promising technologies for treating and potentially curing diseases, including various forms of cancer.[9][10][11]

Born in Retford, England, Royston emigrated to the United States with his family in 1954 at age 9, and later, as a 14-year-old, he declared that he would devote his life to curing cancer. Unlike many future scientists, his passion also extended to commerce. This early interest in business manifested itself in a Washington, D.C., high-school investment club of 16 boys — dubbed the Chessmen — that he founded with friends. He also bought and operated an ice cream truck to earn money for college.

These divergent interests — medicine and business — would one day catapult Royston beyond his peers, transforming San Diego's economy while improving the health and lives of tens of thousands of patients along the way.[12]

Accomplishments


In 1978 Royston, then an assistant professor at the University of California-San Diego, bridged a chasm between academia and the marketplace, triggering a paradigm shift that forever changed San Diego's medical research community and led to the region's establishment as a leading international biotech clusters.[2][3][13]

Royston's reasoning was that private enterprise clearly provided the fastest way to get new, life-saving medicines from the research bench top to the patient's bedside. While serving as a researcher and a practicing physician at UCSD, Royston felt the frustration at the long process required to deliver innovative treatments to patients. That frustration fueled his decisive action to work towards eliminating the disconnect between research and clinical application by founding Hybritech with fellow scientist Howard Birndorf in 1978.[14]

The idea behind Hybritech was to harness monoclonal antibodies to quickly diagnose and treat diseases. Financier Brook Byers, of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, realized the importance of the science and recognized the longer-term value of the budding entrepreneurs' passion, energy and commitment. His firm provided the $300,000 start-up funding, and Hybritech's first product, antibodies for the hepatitis B virus, reached the research market in 1980. The PSA test developed later by the company for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer has benefited countless victims of this deadly disease and set the stage for new blood tests for the early detection of cancer. Hybritech went public in 1981 and, five years later, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company paid $480 million for the company.[15][16]

Tina Nova, one of the senior scientists at Hybritech, reflects that “It was like “Animal House”' meets “The Waltons”[17]

Royston went on to co-found IDEC Pharmaceuticals (later Biogen Idec) in 1985. Other co-founders included Howard Birndorf, Richard Miller and Brook Byers.[18] He also co-founded the San Diego Regional Cancer Center, of which he was president and CEO 1990 until 2000. Renamed the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in 1995, it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009.[19]

More than 50 San Diego companies trace their lineage directly to Hybritech, its founders and early employees. Among those are IDEC, San Diego's biggest biotech success story, with a billion dollars in sales for its lymphoma treatment Rituxan. Others include Amylin, Cancervax, Gen-Probe, Ligand Pharmaceuticals and Nanogen.[9]


In addition to Hybritech, Royston has been directly involved in the founding or funding of many biotech companies as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. These companies include: Applied Molecular Evolution, Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Combichem (acquired by Dupont), Corixa, Dynavax Technologies Corporation, Genesys Therapeutics (merged with Somatix and acquired by Cell Genesys), Genquest (acquired by Corixa), HenaQuest, IDEC Pharmaceuticals (merged with Biogen), LigoCyte, Micromet (formerly CancerVax), Morphotek (Acquired by Eisai Corporation), Sequana Therapeutics (merged with Arris to form AXYS and acquired by Celera Genomics), Syndax, Targegen, Triangle Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead) and Variagenics (merged with Hyseq Pharmaceuticals to form Nuvelo).[9][20]

Royston is impassioned. Some people are steady keeled, but he's not like that. Royston is always passionately on, wheeling and dealing, or he's exhausted. Those are his only two states.[5]

— Daniel Gold

Career milestones
  • As a producer of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, Royston won a 2006 Tony award for best musical.[21]
  • In April 2017, he was appointed as the President and the CEO of Viracta Therapeutics, a San Diego-based anti—cancer biotech company. He helped establish the company with technology retrieved from San Diego's HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals which was originally developed in Douglas Faller's lab at Boston University.[22][23]

Philanthropy

In 1987, Royston and his wife established the Ivor and Colette Carson Royston Advised Fund at the San Diego Foundation to support a variety of healthcare and cultural organizations. The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, San Diego Opera, La Jolla Playhouse, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Jewish Community Center and Congregation Beth Israel are among those organizations to benefit from the Roystons' generosity.[24]

In 2002, they presented the Ivor and Colette Royston Research Program Award to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.[25]

Personal

Royston is married to Colette and they have two children.

Awards

References
  1. Fikes, Bradley J. Only time eludes forever quizzical science maverick: Ivor Royston, president of San Diego Regional Cancer Center, San Diego Business Journal, June 13, 1994.
  2. "Why San Diego Has Biotech" Archived 2007-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, Fikes, Bradley J. San Diego Metropolitan, April 1999. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  3. "Biotech Eden", Wilson, Elizabeth K. Chemical & Engineering News, March 5, 2001. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  4. "CONNECT Inducts Dr. Ivor Royston into Entrepreneur Hall of Fame", Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, June 14, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  5. "A legend in biotech world", Crabtree, Penni. The San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 14, 2004. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  6. "Innovation Prospectors: San Diegans ply a river of ideas for biotech gold" Archived 2011-07-24 at the Wayback Machine, Acello, Rich. San Diego Magazine, June 2008. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  7. "Profiles in Innovation Series: Von Liebig Forum", UCTV: UC San Diego, June 26, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  8. "8th Shanghai International Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Forum" Archived 2007-12-24 at the Wayback Machine Bio-Forum 2006, Apr. 25-27, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  9. "Ivor Royston". Forward Ventures. 2007.
  10. "Ivor Royston, MD", VentureForth, 2005. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  11. "Ivor Royston profile", LinkedIn, 2008. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  12. "Ivor Royston, MD", Conde Nast Portfolio.com:, 2008. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  13. "Innovation Prospectors: San Diegans ply a river of ideas for biotech gold" Archived 2011-07-24 at the Wayback Machine, Acello, Rich. San Diego Magazine, June 2008. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  14. "Cancer Researcher Turned Venture Capitalist" Archived 2009-01-08 at the Wayback Machine, San Diego Metropolitan, November 2002. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  15. "The Birth of Biotech: How one company helped seed San Diego's industry" Archived 2008-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Chi, Kelly Rae. The Scientist. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  16. "Forbes Profile: Ivor Royston, MD", Forbes.com, 2008. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  17. Casper, Steven (2007). Creating Silicon Valley in Europe public policy towards new technology industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199269525. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  18. "Exhibit 99.1 Biogen and IDEC Pharmaceuticals Announce Merger To Create a New Biotechnology Industry Leader". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 1 December 2018. IDEC — Founded in 1985 to develop monoclonal antibodies. Founders include Ivor Royston, Howard Birndorf, Richard Miller and Brook Byers
  19. Moran, Greg (April 8, 2009). "Funding problems hit cancer facility". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  20. Dionisio, Jennifer (Spring 2007). "Ivor Royston, Adventures in Biotechnology". Chemical Heritage Newsmagazine. 25 (1): 40. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2008.
  21. "Ivor Royston, Producer", Internet Broadway Database, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  22. "Xconomy: Stealthy San Diego-based Viracta Steps Into Light with $18.5M". Xconomy. 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2018-03-01.
  23. Fikes, Bradley J. "World's largest biotech convention will showcase hot areas of life science". sandiegouniontribune.com. Retrieved 2018-03-01.
  24. "2005 Annual Report" Archived 2008-08-08 at the Wayback Machine, The San Diego Foundation, 2005. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  25. "Ivor and Colette Royston Research Program Award", Johns Hopkins University, 2002. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  26. "Dr. Ivor Royston, CONNECT Hall of Fame Inductee" Archived 2008-12-04 at the Wayback Machine, CONNECT.org, Nov. 8, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  27. "CONNECT Inducts Dr. Ivor Royston into Entrepreneur Hall of Fame", Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, June 14, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  28. "2008 Visionary Awards" Archived 2010-04-13 at the Wayback Machine, LEAD San Diego, March 25, 2008. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  29. "Royston's risks pay off with award", Bell, Diane. The San Diego Union-Tribune, April 11, 2006. Accessed June 20, 2008.
  30. "Biotechnology Heritage Award". Science History Institute. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
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