Roger Crystal Went to Business School to Learn How to Treat Addiction

Roger Crystal was the on-call surgeon at University College Hospital in London on July 7, 2005, when a series of explosions in the Underground killed 56 people and injured more than 700. Terror victims streamed into his operating room. Even so, his toughest case that day, he says, was a heroin addict who’d contracted a flesh-eating infection from a dirty needle. “He was lying there with his liver and intestines exposed, and all he wanted to do was shoot up on heroin,” Crystal says. “That’s when I realized just how bad a disease addiction can be, how dysfunctional the circuitry of the brain can become.”

He could provide care at the individual level, but the problem of addiction required a population-level solution. Crystal quit his medical career to pursue an MBA from London Business School, then did a stint at Goldman Sachs Group, worked on acquisitions and licensing deals at GE Healthcare, and consulted for companies that treat diabetics. When the opportunity arose to become chief executive officer of Lightlake Therapeutics in 2009, Crystal saw his opportunity.