Its chief executive, Arthur Levinson, rose through the ranks starting as a basic scientist.

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Google boss Eric Schmidt and former Genentech boss Arthur Levinson sit on the boards of both companies.

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He was in Italy on May 18 when he received an urgent message to call Genentech Chief Arthur Levinson.

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Genentech Chief Executive Arthur Levinson knows that his company's success--it has the biggest market capitalization in biotechnology--is improbable.

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But the company's biggest success last year came from the breast cancer medicine Herceptin, an old drug for which Chief Executive Arthur Levinson helped lay the groundwork as a Genentech research scientist 26 years ago.

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Like Genentech Chief Executive Arthur Levinson (see " Drug Prices: The Genentech Solution"), he said he foresees a time when companies may introduce medicines in places like Canada at prices that governments there do not want to pay.

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