John C. Martin, who became a billionaire by developing and marketing a daily single-dose pill that transformed H.I.V. into a manageable disease and who popularized another drug that cures hepatitis C, died on March 30 in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 69.

His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by [Gilead Sciences], based in Foster City, Calif., where he was chief executive from 1996 to 2016 and executive chairman from 2016 until he retired two years later. The cause was head injuries suffered the day before, when he fell on a sidewalk while walking home in Old Palo Alto, according to the Santa Clara County medical examiner.

A chemist who rocketed from research director to chief executive of Gilead in six years, Dr. Martin turned a struggling pharmaceutical firm with a staff of 35 into a $100 billion company based in Foster City, Calif., with some 12,000 employees.

Gilead jolted the industry with several major scientific breakthroughs, beginning with the development of the first anti-influenza pill, Tamiflu, which the company licensed to the Swiss drugmaker Hoffman-La Roche in 1996. Its advance against hepatitis C came in 2014, with the marketing of Sovaldi, which has been said to cure 90 percent of patients with that liver virus.

Gilead’s work on H.I.V. began to bear fruit in 2004, when its Truvada was approved to treat the virus; the drug went on to gain approval as a means to prevent H.I.V. infection in 2012.

The company’s biggest advance on the H.I.V. front came in 2006, with Atripla, which combined Truvada with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Sustiva in a single pill, replacing as many as 32 separate medications that some patients were taking daily to treat the virus, which can lead to AIDS.

The single-pill treatment was meant to be more than a convenience. By making it easier for patients to self-medicate, they were more likely to take the full doses that were prescribed, reducing the risk that they could become breeding grounds for drug-resistant strains of the disease.

During Dr. Martin’s tenure, Gilead also created remdesivir in 2009, which proved ineffective in its original mission, to treat hepatitis C and other viruses, but which turned out to be a therapeutic weapon during the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the company’s annual revenue soared past $20 billion and its products were hailed as medical miracles, the federal Department of Health and Human Services claimed that Gilead had infringed government patents in making Truvada. (That case is still pending.) The company also drew fire from state and federal regulators over the prices it charged — $1,000 a month for Sustiva and $1,000 for each hepatitis pill.

Dr. Martin defended Gilead in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal in 2017. He argued, among other things, that high prices for successful products were needed to subsidize future research.

The company’s defenders also pointed out that Gilead had donated drugs in some cases and that it had partnered with local manufacturers in developing countries to produce discounted generic versions of some treatments for H.I.V. and hepatitis C.

“John’s legacy,” Daniel O’Day, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement, “will be felt for generations to come, living on through the scientific progress made under his leadership and the programs he championed that expanded access to medications for people around the world.”

John Charles Martin was born on May 7, 1951, in Easton, Pa., the son of Tellis Alexander Martin, a chemist for Bristol-Myers, and Janet (Sacks) Martin, who taught chemistry, physics and computer literacy at a prep school in Indiana.

Mr. Martin earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University, where he met Rosemary Carella at a party; they married in 1977 and each earned a master’s degree (his in business administration and marketing) from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. He later received a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago.

After working at Syntex Corporation, another drugmaker, from 1978 to 1984, Mr. Martin was director of antiviral chemistry at Bristol-Myers Squibb until 1990, when he joined Gilead.

As chief executive, he and John Milligan, who would become his successor, engineered the $11 billion takeover of Pharmasset, a developer of antiviral drugs, in 2012. In addition to running Gilead, Dr. Martin was president of the International Society for Antiviral Research from 1998 to 2000.

His marriage to Ms. Martin ended in divorce. Among his survivors are their son and daughter, his three siblings and his partner, Lillian Lien-Li Lou, who was listed in a recent filing as the secretary-treasury of the John C. Martin Foundation, whose stated mission is to improve health care for medically-underserved populations.

John Charles Martin, a chemist, longtime chief executive officer of the biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, and more recently, a philanthropist and global health advocate dedicated to addressing health disparities in communities around the world passed away on 30 March 2021.

John was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, on 7 May 1951 to Dr Tellis Alexander Martin and Janet Sacks Martin, both chemists by training. Growing up as the eldest of four children in Evansville, Indiana, John’s first of many subsequent jobs was picking strawberries. Seemingly unrelated to the career path he would take, his work ethic, humility, and perseverance were evident even at a very young age.

College took John to Purdue University, where he graduated with honors in Chemical Engineering (1973). Continuing on to University of Chicago and joining the laboratory of Professor Josef (Gus) Fried, John worked on the synthesis of prostaglandins, where he solved many unique synthetic chemistry challenges [1]. After receiving his PhD in organic chemistry (1977), John joined Syntex in Palo Alto and quickly advanced to section leader in drug discovery. During this time, John attended evening classes and earned an MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco (1984), an experience that years later led him to design and implement an onsite and subsidized MBA program for employees of Gilead Sciences, many of whom would neither have had the time nor resources to advance their education. This program was one of many examples of John’s unwavering focus on supporting the development of his employees, in all roles and at all levels.

A creative and prolific synthetic chemist, John, had an extraordinary ability to mentally visualize the orientation and symmetry of atoms and molecules in 3 dimensions. At Syntex, he continued to invent new chemistries to allow efficient synthesis of complex molecules [2,3]. He synthesized ganciclovir, thus co-inventing the first acyclic nucleoside antiviral drug to treat and prevent infections caused by cytomegalovirus [4–6]. This drug and its prodrug remain cornerstones in the management of cytomegalovirus infections today [7]. John joined Bristol Myers in 1984 to lead its antiviral and anti-infective research programs in Syracuse, New York, where he directed the development and eventual licensure of two dideoxynucleoside antivirals to treat HIV/AIDS—didanosine and stavudine [8–11]. While at Bristol Myers, John initiated collaborations with Professors Antonín (Tony) Holý in Prague and Erik De Clercq in Leuven, and together they forged the new field of nucleotide antivirals [12].

Innovative science to fulfill unmet medical needs

In 1990, John joined the then early-stage biotechnology company Gilead Sciences in California and led the evolution of its research. John’s first accomplishment was negotiating rights from Tony and Erik to a library of nucleotide analogs. After sustained research and development of these compounds [13,14], Gilead was transformed to become the world’s powerhouse of antiviral drug manufacturing and commercialization [15–21]. Gilead’s continuous success drove the productivity level of an entire industry and, most importantly, reduced life-threatening viral infections to manageable chronic diseases.

In 1996, John was appointed Gilead’s chief executive officer, a role he would hold for the next 20 years. During that timeframe, John launched 20 innovative medicines, made Gilead drugs accessible to millions of patients in developing countries, and ncreased the company value 140-fold to 120 billion USD. He was appointed Chairman of Gilead’s Board of Directors in 2008 and would remain in that role until 2019. His tenure and leadership at Gilead was—and will continue to be—nothing short of legendary. Under his leadership, the company developed multiple breakthrough medicines, perhaps most notably for people with HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. These inventions changed the treatment paradigm; John’s leadership reshaped the foundation of global access to life-saving therapies.

To simplify HIV treatment, John directed Gilead in forming an unprecedented partnership between three companies, that led to the creation of the first single tablet regimen of three best-in-class anti-HIV medicines formulated into one pill dosed once daily [22]. This single tablet regimen, approved by the FDA in 2006, transformed the care of people living with HIV by avoiding regimens of multiple pills that made compliance challenging and led to the potential for drug-resisting treatment failures [19]. A few years later, following John’s vision, the company gained regulatory approval for the first HIV medication indicated to prevent the transmission of the infection, an approach known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, for people at risk for HIV infection [16,18,23]. To continually advance patient care, John’s directive was that “we must continue to innovate to make our own products obsolete,” such that each innovation improved on the prior advance. Meanwhile, John turned his focus to curing hepatitis C with an unwavering conviction and put Gilead in the lead to bring to patients several ground-breaking, safe and curative regimens, essentially eliminating the need for liver transplantation caused by hepatitis C [20].

Providing medicines to fulfill unmet access needs

John’s pursuit of innovative science expanded into pioneering solutions for global health. In 2003, when John traveled to Africa with Tommy Thompson (then the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services) he was struck by the immense devastation HIV/AIDS was having across the continent. He recognized that this devastation extended beyond human lives, impacting economies and societies as a whole. There was no precedent or blueprint for how a company could enable equitable access, but Gilead forged the path under John’s leadership. He directed the design of a revolutionary access program that would deliver the company’s HIV treatments to more than 130 resource-limited countries. This access program provides licenses and technology transfers to generic manufacturers in India and other countries, thus enabling the licensees to rapidly produce quality drug products in high volume and at low cost [24]. The program later extended beyond HIV to include Gilead’s medicines for viral hepatitis B and C [25]. Today, more than 18 million people in low-income countries around the world receive these life-saving medicines each day, owing to John’s business ingenuity, engineering excellence and kind-heartedness.

John’s commitment to addressing health disparities was fueled by a deep understanding that can only come from first-hand experience. He met with healthcare providers, public policy experts, and community workers, whether in low-income countries or devastated neighborhoods in the United States, to develop a better understanding of the barriers individuals faced daily. John stimulated the formation of the Gilead Foundation in 1995 for improving health and well-being in underserved communities around the world. Separately, in 2014, John established his private foundation, the John C. Martin Foundation, with the goal of facilitating the establishment of sustainable improvement of health care for populations in socially and economically disadvantaged settings (https://thejcmfoundation.org) [26,27].

Recognitions and services

John was widely recognized for his scientific and global health contributions to humanity. He received many awards, including the Horace S. Isbell Award from the Carbohydrate Division of the American Chemical Society (1990), the Gertrude Elion Memorial Lecture Award from the International Society for Antiviral Research (2003), the Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service from the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (2014), the Biotechnology Heritage Award from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (2017), the Stanford Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to science benefitting humanity (2019), and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Chemistry in Service to Society (2019). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008.

In addition, John was honored by Belgium’s Order of the Crown (2017), Senegal’s Order of the Lion (2017), and the Republic of Georgia’s Golden Fleece (2017). He accepted Honorary Doctoral Degrees from Katholieke University Leuven (2017) and The Scripps Research Institute (2019).

John’s expertise was widely sought after through many private and public sector appointments. John was president of the International Society for Antiviral Research (1998–2000) and chaired two leading industry organizations (California Healthcare Institute, 2005–2006 and 2009 and BayBio, 1999–2001). He served on the boards of Golden Gate University, University of Southern California, University of Chicago, University of California School of Global Health, The Scripps Research Institute, [Sarepta Therapeutics (AVI BioPharma)], Leyden Labs, and Kronos Bio. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering’s COVID-19 Call to Action Committee (2020–2021), and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Global Health (2020–2021), and Committee on Advancing Pandemic and Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Preparedness and Response—Vaccine Research and Development (2021). John’s public service included the National institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council and AIDS Research Advisory Committee (2000–2003), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Resources and Services Administration’s Advisory Committee on HIV and STD Prevention and Treatment (2004–2007), and the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (2006–2009).

A quiet, unassuming force, John was a visionary leader, an admired mentor, a trusted friend, a loving father, and an endearing partner (Figure 2). His overwhelming generosity and humility remained notable characteristics. Never one to seek the spotlight, he took great joy in celebrating others’ accomplishments, even when those accomplishments were achieved through his steady guidance and support. His brilliance changed forever what a diagnosis of HIV or viral hepatitis mean, and his commitment to helping people around the world never faltered.

Summary

We celebrate the life and contributions of John C. Martin. His impact on the treatment of life-threatening viral infections will endure forever. Let all who read this Commentary continue the outstanding global work he initiated.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

• Taiyin Yang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2465-0123

• Richard J Whitley https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9959-9276

References

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