Economics
Billionaire AutoZone Founder Pumps Fortune Into Cancer Fight
This article is for subscribers only.
In the 15 years since J.R. “Pitt” Hyde was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the founder of AutoZone Inc. has devoted the largest single portion of his billion-dollar fortune to searching for a cure.
Hyde, now 68 and cancer free, teamed up with Mitch Steiner, the surgeon who removed his prostate, to form GTx Inc., a biomedical company based in Memphis, Tennessee. GTx has yet to put a new drug on the market since its 1997 launch and the stock, which closed yesterday at $3.49, has been volatile. It hit its 52-week low of $2.31 in March and its 52-week high of $6.57 in June.