Thursday, January 5, 2017

Amgen Co-Founder Bowes Passes Away

William K. Bowes, Jr., the founding shareholder and chairman and treasurer of Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, has died, at the age of 90. Bowes--who also founded venture capital firm USVP--died peacefully in his home on December 28th. Amgen said that "without Bowes, there would be no Amgen". The firm said that Bowes was instrumental in coming up with th eiea to launch the biotech company that would become Amgen. Bowes retired from Amgen's board in 2002. USVP has backed such companies as Sun Microsystems, New Focus, Check Point Software Technologies, and hundreds of others. Bowes founded USVP after spending nearly 25 years at investment banking firm Blyth & Co., where he was the lead underwriter for IPOs of such firms as Hewlett-Packard and Raychem.