Chasing the Invisible combines the suspense of a spy novel with the education and scientific insight of a medical mystery thriller, all wrapped in a dramatic business story. In addition to revealing the detective work of medicine and its impact on physicians and patients, Chasing the Invisible features a colorful cast of Wall Street investment bankers, venture capitalists and the titans of a giant multinational company out to acquire the missing puzzle piece necessary to ensure the next phase of life-saving innovation.
Dr. Tom Grogan navigated his way through all those worlds to fulfill his vision. He ultimately transformed his classic biomedical start-up company--born as a diagram on a piece of paper and a jerry-rigged prototype built in his garage--into a successful multi-billion-dollar worldwide enterprise, following its acquisition by a Swiss pharmaceutical giant. Today his invention of an automated cancer diagnostics device that helps personalize the detection of cancer and enables doctors to treat it more effectively is transforming medical practice throughout the world.
Whether you're interested in learning about science and medicine, or about entrepreneurship and how to create an exciting and dynamic leadership culture, or even if you're just looking for a good read with wit and humor, Chasing the Invisible is worth picking up. If you've ever chased a dream bigger than yourself; if you've ever been rejected, impeded, accused, sued, held up, knocked down, flat broke, far flung, or near death with cancer, and you didn't quit, this book is for you.
In "Chasing the Invisible," Dr. Grogan leads the reader on an engaging journey of inspiration, empathy, invention, and entrepreneurship. The story begins with his adventurous childhood and ends with an emphasis on the importance of personalized healthcare, with patient examples appropriately sprinkled throughout the text. Dr. Gorgan paints a vivid and easy to digest image of the intricacies of working with cancer diagnostics and why it is such a challenging field. If you are looking for a story of life lessons that educates on medical procedure and principle, reassures that there are good people working to improve the lives of patients, and demonstrates the strength hope and insurmountable will power, I highly recommend this memoir.
In this book, Dr. Morgan tells the story of founding a medical diagnostics company that revolutionised cancer diagnosis that yields the key to personalized medicine and cancer treatments. The book provides a very personal account of motivation and dealing with big money required to build a business in a highly regulated space (i.e., to design a new diagnostic test for cancer, a full-blown medical trial costing millions of dollars is needed).
The writing style is a bit amateurish: while the book is ordered largely chronological, he often uses flash-forwards to describe the future role of persons. At the associated chronological point further down the book, these events are often repeated. Also, all the events are described under the disguise of retelling stories at the hospital bed of his mom and gives a sense of unease to this reader).