Student Fights Illness for MBA

In Hebrew, “chai” means life, and for the Harvard Business School classmates and professors of Avichai “Avi” Kremer, it is no coincidence that he has been a symbol of life since he was diagnosed last fall with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Since Kremer was first diagnosed, this second-year Business School student has raised over two million dollars, facilitated discussions between competing pharmaceutical companies, and founded two companies dedicated to discovering a treatment for ALS—commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kremer will graduate this week from the Business School and receive the prestigious Dean’s Award for his devotion to increasing ALS research and awareness.

“I always said I will walk and shake the hand of the dean at the end of the graduation ceremony,” said Kremer. “It is a small victory for me.”

FIGHTING AND FORGING

Kremer, a native of Israel, began his fight against ALS at the place to which he said he owes everything—Harvard Business School.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative illness that causes patients to lose control over their voluntary muscles. There are over 30,000 Americans living with ALS, and most individuals diagnosed with the illness have a lifespan of three to five years.

Kremer chose not to leave Harvard and refused to accept his fate passively after his diagnosis.

“Avi instead made the extremely difficult and courageous choice of fighting back.” said Nathan M. Boaz, a close friend and classmate of Kremer.

Along with 90 of his classmates and Janice H. Hammond, the Philips professor and senior associate dean, Kremer led a candy fundraiser for Valentine’s Day and hosted an online auction for ALS research last spring.

Kremer and Boaz aimed to raise $100,000 from these endeavors—an unprecedented amount for section fundraisers. They exceeded even their own expectations, raising $150,000.

“I think that Avi and [his classmates] show what a fairly small group of human beings can do when they really get focused on a problem, when people are working together rather than at odds together,” Hammond said.

Kremer spent the following summer in Israel where he worked with 12 research projects at eight different universities to raise $2 million in ALS funding.

But now Kremer and Boaz have their eyes set on five times that amount.

After Kremer and Boaz heard of the the Ansari X Prize—a $10 million competition to launch a piloted spacecraft into space twice within two weeks in 2004—Kremer said they decided to create a company based on the same business model.

“One of the big problems with ALS is that there are not a lot of novel treatment ideas coming from new places,” said Boaz.

With the help of Daniel J. Isenberg, a senior lecturer who taught Kremer in his entrepreneurial course, Boaz and Kremer founded Prize4life, a nonprofit organization that will provide $10 million worth of rewards to ALS researchers.

Boaz and Kremer will officially launch the website prize4life.org and the contest on Friday.

To better understand the pharmaceutical market, Kremer had first organized a symposium of major pharmaceutical competitors to discuss what is slowing the discovery of new treatments for ALS.

For Prize4Life, Kremer has teamed up with Robert H. Brown Jr., a leading ALS researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “One hopes that there will be a treatment, an intervention that will slow the disease,” Brown said. “Obviously the real hope is a cure. Whether that is possible, I don’t know.”

This summer, Kremer will be working on the launch of Avi Therapeutics, a for-profit biotech company that will try to commercialize academic research in the ALS field, according to Kremer.

With these two companies, Kremer said he will continue to fight. “I want to save every ALS patient who lives today,” he said.

LIVING AND LAUGHING

Kremer has devoted the past two years of his life to promoting ALS research, efforts which the larger community has recognized. Kremer is one of five recipients of the Dean’s Award for graduating MBA students who have made a positive impact on the Business School community and the well-being of society.

“He is very soft-spoken, very easy-going, and, at the same time, very, very intelligent with a great sense of humor,” said Isenberg.

But Kremer said his friends are the ones who should truly be awarded.

“These people are my engine, my north star, my support and family,” said Kremer. “I owe everything that I have achieved to them.

—Staff writer Madeline W. Lissner can be reached at mlissner@fas.harvard.edu.