Combative and charismatic, Mr. Silber was a true believer in Seragen and its drugs, and for a decade he was the company's most ardent salesman. He persuaded scores of associates, friends, and family members to buy in: his brother, sister-in-law and niece, and friends on the faculty. His secretary plowed in more than $10,000.
At Mr. Silber's behest, the university poured tens of millions into Seragen, a sum that grew even in the face of a formal rebuke from state regulators that the stake was too risky for a nonprofit endowment.
Mr. Silber himself sank $1.7 million, close to half his net worth, into Seragen in the early 1990's. And when his son was dying of AIDS, Mr. Silber saw to it that he was treated with Interleukin-2, the company's experimental drug.
To Mr. Silber, Seragen was not just the purveyor of a magic bullet against disease; it was also the cure for Boston University's chronic financial needs -- the wonder drug that would propel the university's modest endowment into Ivy League ranks and, maybe, win a Nobel Prize for one of its faculty members. He delved into the company's complex science much as he had immersed himself, as a philosophy student, in the ethics of Immanuel Kant.
But as with so many infatuations, this one came to an ugly end.
An F.D.A. advisory panel recommended approval of Interleukin-2 this year -- but not before Seragen, based in Hopkinton, Mass., ran out of money.
The stock collapsed, and the company, flirting with bankruptcy, was sold in August for a pittance. Boston University's stake today is worth just $8.4 million. Mr. Silber's holdings, which had grown to $2 million, are valued now at $43,000. Some investors did better, depending on when they bought in and whether they got out before the crash. By the time Mr. Schrader died in May, his investment had all but evaporated.
Ligand has acquired Seragen, paying $30mm at the closing ($4mm cash/$26mm stock), plus an earnout of $37mm in cash or stock if the FDA approves Seragen's drug Ontak for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma within two years.
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