Extraordinary,but true

Last month,when the Tom Vaughan directed drama,Extraordinary Measures,opened in the US and Canada,one of...

Last month,when the Tom Vaughan directed drama,Extraordinary Measures,opened in the US and Canada,one of its protagonists Brendan Fraser was lauded by critics for his portrayal of John Crowley,a father who struggles to find a cure for his ailing children. The film was an intensely personal journey for me. Since I am a father of three in real life,I could easily relate to what it must have been like, says Fraser,in an e-mail from the US. The film releases in India in April.

Extraordinary Measures is adapted from the book,The Cure,by journalist Geeta Anand. It describes the journey of American entrepreneur John Crowley and his wife Aileen to find a cure for Pompe,a genetic disorder that impairs muscle functions. Two of their three children,Megan 13 and Patrick Crowley 11,are diagnosed with the disorder. Random House is publishing the India edition soon.

The films journey began in 2001,when Anand was working on the bio-technology beat for the Wall Street Journal. One day I got a call from a public relations person handling Novazyme the company founded by John Crowley telling me about their efforts to develop a new drug for curing Pompe. Like any journalist who is sceptical,I verified the companys credentials from the National Health Survey, says Anand,who was in New York working with WSJ.

Her first story appeared in July 2001 after meeting the Crowleys. I was always attracted to human drama and Johns journey seemed surreal. By writing about him I could bring into focus the bio-technology industry, she says. Her two articlesthe first on insider trading scams and the other on analyists sneaking in on clinical trialsfor the WSJ won her a Pulitzer Prize in 2002. After her second article appeared in 2003,she got calls from book agents urging her to write a book on the Crowleys. Once Anand had completed the books rough draft,she received a query from the producers of the filmMichael Shamberg,his wife Carla Shamberg and business partner Stacey Sherabout adapting the book into a film. Soon after,the producers contacted Crowley for making a film on his extraordinary life.

In 1998,Crowleys daughter Megan was diagnosed with Pompe and within months,Patrick. It was as though somebody had kicked me in the stomach, he recalls. At the time,I was thinking of getting a regular job,climbing up the corporate ladder, he says. Instead,he quit his job at a neuro-sciences company and founded Novazyme. After several road blocks,Crowley managed to get his children into clinical-trials for a new drug,in 2003.

The films producers and scriptwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs were in constant touch with Crowley,getting his approval for the script and reconstructing certain events with his help. They even got Harrison Ford to play Dr Robert Stonehill,one of the medical researchers in the film. This was something different to what I normally am involved with. I saw a chance to build an interesting part for myself in that story, Ford says.

Crowley is pleased with the film. They did a beautiful job in capturing the essence of our story, says Crowley,who has a cameo role in the film as a venture capitalist. That is the start and ending of my acting career, he laughs.

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Today,Crowley is the CEO of Amicus Therapeutics,a bio-technology firm researching cures for genetic disorders including Pompe. Megan and Patrick are both attending school. We try doing stuff together as a family. It keeps us going, he says.

Meanwhile,Anand is researching on a biographical work,tentatively titled In My Fathers Footsteps,about her father.