Then, Girondi claimed, Sloan Kettering mothballed his work to favor Bluebird, whose chief executivehad a prior business relationship with the cancer center's boss.
Girondis rage has been fueled by Bluebirds trajectory since then: its thalassemia treatment was approved last year by the European Union and at $1.8 million per patient will be among the most expensive.
In my neighborhood, theyd have gotten ball batted for similar behavior, said Girondi, a self-described former street tough from the South Side of Chicago whosbeen using such talk to describe his adversaries for years.
Now, Girondi is finally getting his day in court. Having survived years of legal challenges, which have portrayed his case as absurd and Girondi himself as erratic and ill-tempered, his trial began on Thursday.Errant is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, according to court filings.
The trial promises a rare glimpse into the not uncommonly messy marriage of medical researchers and for-profit companies, and it will showcase a slew of revealingdocuments and emails that have emerged in the court file, including one that Girondis lawyers described in court as the smoking gun.
Written in June 2010 by Nick Leschly, then interim president of Genetix Pharmaceuticals, which was renamed Bluebird Bio a few months later, the emailsaid:Pat Girondineed to shut him down.
The recipient of the email, another Genetix executive, responded by saying they need to be nice, suck up, etc. to Girondi, so they can review valuable data from a Sloan Kettering scientist with whom Errant was collaborating.
Both Sloan Kettering and Bluebird deny Errants allegations.
Sloan Kettering is vigorously defending itself in court, said Jorge Lopez, executive vice president and general counsel for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in a statement. We also disagree with EGTs characterizations of the case and of the Courts rulings. He declined further comment.
In court filings, Sloan Kettering has argued that Girondis company, called EGT for short,wasnt tricked but rather was short of money and repeatedly failed to meet obligations outlined in its deal.
The evidence shows that EGTs case is the fantasy of a defunct company and its founder that refuse to accept responsibility for their own failure, an attorney for Sloan Kettering Institute wrotein a July 8, 2019 filing.
Bluebirds attorney, Jeffrey Eilender, said the court record has disproved Errantsclaim of a conspiracy between Sloan Kettering Institute, referred to as SKI in court filings, and Bluebird, as well as an allegation that Bluebird gleaned secrets from Girondis company.
None of the evidence relied upon by EGT shows a material issue as to the ultimate fact: none suggests in any way that there was an agreement between Bluebird and SKI to defraud EGT, Bluebirds lawyers wrotein a July 8, 2019 court filing. In fact, EGT does not even explain how or why the facts it cites are relevant here (they are not); it just throws everything at the wall to see if it sticks.
As for Leschlys email saying that Girondi needed to be shut down, Eilender said it referred to Girondi,not the company. Why? Because with all due respect to Mr. Girondi, hes a nudnik, Eilender told the court at January 2019 hearing, explaining Girondi had becomea nuisance.
Leschly wasnt available for an interview, but he has previously expressed his opinions about Girondi and his firm.
Errant is toothless and the guy behind it is completely insane, truly, Leschly wrote in a 2012 email to an investment analyst.
Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder in which the body doesnt produce enough hemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells that carriesoxygen. Moderate and severe, or beta,cases require frequent blood transfusions and can result in early death.
In 1992, Rocco Girondi was diagnosed with a more severe form of the blood disorder. He was two years old. The next year, Girondi retired from what he describes as a lucrative trading career to devote himself to finding a cure.
Girondi, 62, isnt your typical biotech entrepreneur. A high school dropout, he was listed as one of America's most eligible bachelors in Playgirl magazine in 1988 and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode on male chauvinists. (A copy of the show wasnt readily available; Girondi said he had defended both a mans and a woman's right to work, but believed one should stay home if they have children).A 1987 article about him in Chicago Magazine is entitled Fonzie Gets Rich. He left Chicago decades ago for Italy, where he occasionally performs in concert, playing blues and rock andthe occasional Italian ballad. But hestill speaks in the blunt, sometimes salty, manner of the Chicago neighborhood where he grew up.
He had some money at a time when few others showed interest in gene therapy. By 2000, Girondi began providing financial support to researchers at Sloan Kettering, including Dr. Michel Sadelain, who had brought thalassemia under control in mice, according to Errants complaint. Those researchers had developed a method to replace defective genes in thalassemia patients with a healthy copy. The plan used a modified virus known as a vector to deliver the genetic material into the cells.
At that time, gene therapy was relatively new and scarred by missteps, including a patient who had died after undergoing treatment. In 2005, Sloan Kettering granted a license to develop Sadelains potential gene therapy treatment to the only interested party, Errant Gene Therapeutics, according to the complaint.
Progress was slow and hampered by delays, according to Girondi and his lawyers. But by 2010, Errant had manufactured enough of the medicine to start clinical trials, his lawyers say in court papers.
Girondi said the relationship between his company and Sloan Kettering changedsoon after Craig Thompsons hiring as president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Medical Centerwas announced in August 2010. By that fall, he said it was clear his company was on the outs.
It ended very strangely, Girondi said. I think thats the best way to say it.
Sadelain didnt respond to messages seeking comment.
Thompson, 67, had previously worked at the University of Pennsylvania, where he had been director of the Abramson Cancer Center. He also co-founded a company called Agios Pharmaceuticals in 2007with the goal of unlocking a new field of discovery in cellular metabolism.
Agiosreceived an infusion of $33 million from several venture capital firms in 2008 including Third Rock Ventures, where Leschly the future Bluebird CEO -- was a partner. Leschly also served as Agioss interim chief business officer,according to a 2010 Bluebird press release. A few months later, when Thompson began his job at Sloan Kettering, he was listed as being on Agioss scientific advisory board.
In September, 2010, Sloan Kettering asked Errant for physical possession of the vector to complete a study which it said was necessary to move forward with clinical trials, according to Errants lawyers. Errant delivered the vector and never got it back, the lawyers said.
Sloan Kettering said in court documents that by 2010, Errant had defaulted on its obligations, and that following arbitration and a new deal the following year, all rights granted to Errant in the 2005 deal reverted to Sloan Kettering.
Thompson started his job at Sloan Kettering in November, 2010. That same month,Sloan Ketteringmet with Bluebird and gave them a technical demonstration on Errants vector, sharing confidential information that served as a preludeto a more formal agreement the next year, according to Errants lawyers.
In November 2010, Bluebirds board of directors in 2010 weighedthe pros and cons of collaborating withSloan Kettering, according to Errants court filings. Among the positives? Eliminates the most threatening competitor, according to thepresentation, which is part of the court record.
Andrew Maslow, a former Sloan Kettering executive, said in an interview thathe made the decision to pursue a collaboration with Bluebird, not Thompson. One reason was the improving landscape for gene therapy, and another was Bluebirds capabilities, he said.
These guys are the real thing. They are totally capable, he said. They were just the opposite of Pat.
While Errant squabbled with Sloan Kettering, Bluebird continued to move toward commercialization of its treatment.
Bluebirds treatment for transfusion-dependent thalassemia patients, Zynteglo, was approved by the European Union last year, and the company plans to apply for U.S. approval in 2021. But thats just the beginning. The gene therapy is also intended foruseas a treatment for sickle cell disease(SCD). It could ultimately generate $1 billion a year in annual sales, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
These therapies have the potential to transform the lives of patients with thalassemia and SCD,said Marc Engelsgjerd, a biotech analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, who called the treatments groundbeaking.
Leschly, for one, has already benefited. He has pocketed roughly $78 million from stock sales since the company went public in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Girondi and Sadelain have been left to contemplate what might have been.
We could have gotten an incredible product and a Nobel Prize, Sadelain said, in a May 2015 phone call that Girondi recorded, also part of the court file. And right now, we have nothing.
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Sloan Kettering Institute, Bluebird Bio in court trial over gene therapy deal - Crain's Chicago Business