Celgene Corporation

Overcoming the Dark Side of a Drug

In the late 1950s and early ‘60s, the world was horrified by images of severely deformed infants. The culprit: a drug called thalidomide.

But after research in Israel showed promising results in the treatment of leprosy and AIDS-associated lesions, Celegene, a small New Jersey biotech company, began to explore thalidomide as a treatment for a rare and painful disease: erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL). Makovsky was engaged to help engineer the U.S. launch of thalidomide, under the brand name Thalomid®.

The results exceeded Celgene’s expectations.

The company’s average stock price increased nearly $3 just after the launch announcement. As a result of this success, Makovsky was selected to help Celgene with its transition from a one-product/one-disease company to a multi-faceted biopharmaceutical company with a promising, profitable pipeline.