After 24 years at Genentech, I’m still in awe of how our medicines are made. Unlike small-molecules, biologic medicines are produced by up to 100 trillion living cells and require near-perfect control of the chemical and physical environment. It’s an exacting process – pioneered by Genentech scientists – that involves thousands of people, working around the clock and across the globe.

Though our medicines help millions of people, few are able to see exactly what it takes to make them. So when the crew from the Science Channel’s “How It’s Made” asked to go behind-the-scenes, we were happy to show them around our manufacturing facilities in South San Francisco and Hillsboro, Oregon.

The video segment below highlights the incredible infrastructure, scale and people behind the creation of a medicine from the building blocks of DNA to highly purified proteins.