Fifty years ago, Herbert Boyer, Ph.D. and venture capitalist Robert Swanson met for drinks. Over beers and scribbles on napkins, the unlikely duo created a company that would ultimately pioneer an entire industry.
That company is Genentech, which would come to be known as “the original biotech.” Boyer and Swanson’s legendary meeting would live on to be immortalized through a 50-year-old company, a bronze sculpture recreation at Genentech’s San Francisco campus, and now, a documentary.
“The Impossible Bet,” created in collaboration with The New York Times’ T Brand Studio and produced by Brother Films, took on the impossible task of wrapping up half a century of innovation into a 35-minute documentary that premiered Oct. 5 in New York City. In it, Genentech tells its founding story and continued legacy through the lens of several patient voices and company executives, as archival footage and images speak to the company’s deep history.
It was a “no-brainer” to work with T Brand Studio, the content studio housed within New York Times Advertising, Genentech's head of corporate communications Tracy Furey said in an interview with Fierce, pointing to its wide platform and creative capabilities.
It was T Brand that suggested that the film be kept at a certain length, to better match audiences’ consumer habits when it comes to informative content. The final cut strikes a balance between “too short” and “too long,” Furey said, but with the rich history of the company, keeping 50 years to 35 minutes was “a challenge,” she acknowledged.
The documentary weaves in patient stories between the story of Genentech itself, with the company’s CEO Ashley Magargee, head of research and early development Aviv Regev, Ph.D., head of global product development and chief medical officer Levi Garraway M.D., Ph.D., and principal business strategy and operations manager Laurie May sitting down to talk through the biotech’s early days and the key scientific milestones it has hit since.
Along the way, viewers meet Janet, a retired nun-turned-oncologist and her former patient, Donna. Janet was one of the first to treat a patient (Donna) with Genentech’s landmark Herceptin, the first targeted treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer.
Janet received the drug for Donna under a compassionate use basis before its 1998 approval, an avenue for Herceptin treatment that emerged after protests from breast cancer patients wanting the experimental drug opened up a patient-biotech dialog. Later, the documentary reveals that Janet herself would end up taking Herceptin after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009.
“I know I owe my life to Herceptin,” Janet said, telling the story 17 years later.
Herceptin is the only brand name mentioned in the film. A snippet of the drug’s label and patient safety information is displayed on-screen as it is discussed, with a voiceover reading out the longer information after the closing shot and before the credits roll on the film.
The documentary also introduces viewers to Max, who talks through her journey with multiple sclerosis (MS) in a 2024-recorded interview included in the film. Max is then revealed as Max Boyer, the daughter of Genentech’s scientist co-founder. Taking an MS medicine that was made as a result of her father’s work “moved me,” she said.
Genentech uses the documentary to not only tell the story of its past but that of its future, which is where Lexi, who is on treatment for obesity, comes in. By sharing her experience with a family history of obesity, Lexi shines a light on an emerging disease area in which Genentech is hoping to carve a path.
“The Impossible Bet” is the cherry on top of a busy year for Genentech, full of internal and external activations centered around the 50th anniversary. With the doc, the company hopes to reach new audiences and set the groundwork for its future in “consumer-based diseases” such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases, Furey explained.
“As our business evolves, so should our corporate brand,” she said, adding that the company is looking to “speak more frequently, more assertively, that Genentech is here and innovating in all these spaces.”
Then, when it becomes time to bring its medicines to these new spaces, “the consumer audience will be ready for us and will understand us and hopefully trust us by the time we get there,” Furey said.
In the documentary, the patient stories are “the centerpiece, because we exist for patients and because of patients,” Furey noted. At the same time, the film is a way to “inspire and motivate” employees who can share in the company’s story and mission and rejoice in working at the historic biotech company that sparked hundreds of others.
One such employee is May, who joined the team 47 years ago as Genentech’s 35th employee. Although Boyer, now 97, and the late Swanson are both featured in the film through archival interview footage, May is able to give viewers a firsthand account of the early days of the San Francisco biotech and add color to the black and white images of smiling Genentech scientists seen throughout the film.
“This company will probably never make it,” May remembers thinking, “but let’s give it a shot.”
Other than airing the documentary at community-based events and deploying it across social media, Genentech is promoting it in Times Square with billboards honoring real-life patients who, like Genentech, turned 50 in 2026.
For Furey, who joined Genentech from Novartis in 2023, the year of anniversary celebrations has been “super fun.”
“That’s what’s great about Genentech—a really whimsical, work hard, play hard culture, and it shows up in very special ways,” she said.