Vertex Pharmaceuticals made history Friday when it received regulatory approval for a medicine that could alter people’s DNA. While the company celebrated, its founder, Joshua Boger, looked on like a proud parent.
Boger, 72, founded Vertex in 1989 and served in various roles until 2017. To this day, he lives next door to the company’s headquarters in Boston’s Seaport District, in a high-rise penthouse where he can quite literally look in on the biotech’s offices. (The clear column in his kitchen filled with racks of wine still holds a Vertex-labeled wine bottle.) He was involved in many of the turning points that led to Friday’s landmark approval, but he still finds it hard to believe.
“I would have lost a house in a bar bet if I had bet that Vertex would be the first company to bring a CRISPR drug to the world,” he told STAT, referring to the CRISPR technology used to edit genes.