John F. Crowley, Chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics

In this episode of Talks at GS, John F. Crowley, chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics discusses his leadership at Amicus Therapeutics, his efforts to develop cutting-edge treatments for rare diseases and disorders, and his perspective as a biotech innovator on the global response to the pandemic.

On his journey into Biotechnology: “I was at Bristol, it was a great experience, but I never went there to kind of go through a boot camp to learn how to run a biopharma company. I did it because it was a good job that paid well, good health insurance, good people. And in my nights and weekends, I researched everything I could and travelled to the conferences and met doctors and finally got to the point by March of 2000, where time was our greatest challenge. You know, we had to beat this mistake of nature, but we also had to beat time, that sense of urgency. And that’s really what caused me to leave Bristol to partner with this researcher at the University of Oklahoma to launch us into this world of medicine… I think Jerry, more than anything we didn’t want to look back years later, if the kids’ lives had been very short, and wished that we had done something else. We didn’t want to have any regrets.”

On navigating the pandemic: “When you’re managing a crisis and you’re doing it remotely, you’ve got to be a very visible leader. So one of the things I undertook was, I said, ‘Within the first 30 days, I want to see—on a Zoom screen—every Amicus employee.’ So within 30 days we did it in small groups… and these are people who I typically wouldn’t be in meetings with as part of the normal flow of business, but it was important that I hear from them, but that they see me and you convey a measured confidence. The other part of it is, in addition to being visible, you’ve got to be honest. You’ve got to be transparent.”

This episode was recorded on May 3, 2021.