After parting ways with Slatkin, Duggan became chairman of Government Technology Services Inc., a large vendor to the federal government. He then led Computer Motion Inc., a robotic surgery company that he sold to Intuitive Surgical in 2003. In 2006, he sold MAG International, a billboard company he owned in eastern Europe.
Duggan made his first filing with the SEC as a beneficial owner of Pharmacyclics stock in September 2004, two days after it announced early positive results on Xcytrin, a different experimental cancer drug.
Three months later, when another study showed no benefit from Xcytrin, Duggan kept buying the company’s shares, according to SEC filings. A year later, he was the company’s largest shareholder. After more disappointing test results, Duggan forced out CEO Richard Miller and three other board members, and told company researchers to focus on three b-cell cancer drugs it had acquired in April 2006.
‘God’s Gift’
B-cell type cancer treatments had been long dismissed in the pharmaceutical world, according to McCamant. The prior owner of the drugs saw little promise in the treatments: Celera Genomics of Rockville, Maryland, sold them to Pharmacyclics for about $3 million and took a related $30 million loss.
Duggan said the drug was a “gift from God” on a December 2011 call with investors when trials on the drugs, including ibrutinib, worked.
According to researcher Wachter, Scientology publications suggest the Duggan and his wife, Trish, were early funders of the Freewinds, a Scientology Caribbean cruise ship where high- level training occurs. They have also supported Ideal Orgs -- Scientology missions -- in the U.S., Canada, Italy and elsewhere, and acted as fundraising missionaries to bring people and money into Scientology.
Patrons Excalibur
In 2008, the Duggan family was recognized by the church for donating more than $7.5 million to the cause, Wachter said. Duggan and his wife were presented two years later with the Patrons Excalibur award, a prize made just for them to recognize a record level of donations to the organization, according to a Scientology magazine.
“What a privilege to be a member of the team of Scientologists who play an active role in preserving the technology of Dianetics and Scientology,” Duggan and his wife said in a statement published by Legacy, a Scientology magazine, in 1992. “As this tech will ultimately have a profound impact on the billions of people on this planet alone, one can immediately see the vital need to preserve it in spite of anything else that can happen.”