Remembering one of biotech's most affecting voices

The world of biotech has lost one of its most affecting and admired voices. Michael Becker was a longtime industry executive who became a moving patient advocate after he was diagnosed with cancer in late 2015. He died this week at the age of 50.

As STAT’s Matthew Herper writes, Becker devoted his final years to underline the risks of the human papillomavirus, which caused his head and neck cancer, and the importance that preteens get the vaccine that prevents HPV infection.

In the process, he kept a detailed blog of his cancer journey, putting a human face on a disease often discussed as an abstraction in drug industry circles.

“Just remember that data, whether it is artificial intelligence or information that’s captured on your computer, there’s a person like me, there’s a person with a family, there’s a person with children, there’s a person who’s been touched by that disease,” Becker said last year. “Just remember data always has a face.”

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