Christopher Henney (born 1941) is an American immunologist and biotechnology entrepreneur who co-founded Immunex Corp. and Icos Corporation, and led Dendreon Corp. to the development of the first FDA-approved cancer vaccination therapy.
[2][3] After his postdoctoral studies at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the Immunoglobulin Reference Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, he was appointed to the faculty of Johns Hopkins University Medical School [1972-1978], before taking the first chair of Basic Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle in 1978.
[4][5][6] Henney, with Steven Gillis and Stephen Duzan co-founded Immunex Corporation in 1980 .Immunex developed Leukine, an agent for the stimulation of white blood cells after chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation.
Immunex was acquired by Amgen Inc in 2002, in what was, at the time, the financially most important sale in the biotechnology sector [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] In 1989, Henney co-founded Icos Corporation with George Rathman, Amgen co-founder and CEO, and Genetic Systems founder Robert Nowinski.The company developed Cialis for erectile dysfunction and was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2007.
[16][17][18][19] Over 40 year period Henney served as chairman for many publicly-held biotechnology companies including: Dendreon, Cyclacel Corp., Cascadian Therapeutics, SGX Pharmaceutics, and Anthera Pharmaceuticals and on the board of many others including Immunex, Icos, and Prothena[20] In 2011, Henney was inducted into the Biotech Hall of Fame.