Goldman Sachs Talks

Dr. Arie Belldegrun, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Allogene Therapeutics

In this episode, filmed at Goldman Sachs’ Builders + Innovators Summit, Dr. Arie Belldegrun discusses his journey to medicine and research, his groundbreaking work in the field of immunotherapy, and turning that work into a successful business. 

On measuring success in medicine: “Success in our life, in our business, is what comes in the end of your effort. In other words, do you have a drug that made a change in the life of patients or not?... What we have done is take our effort in bringing drugs to patients and are changing their [lives]. And that, for me, is success. All the rest is secondary.”   

On his work as an entrepreneur: “We said, ‘Let’s start our own company of immunotherapy and kind of build your immune system to fight your own cancer. ’ At that time, it was more acceptable than when I started immunology and immunotherapy. But still, there was no other company in the field that did engineering of the human immune system to fight cancer.”