Dad quits job at JPMorgan to start new biotech company, save son's life

The father of a 2-year-old boy suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy has quit his job in an effort to pioneer a new business model designed to expedite drug development, Yahoo! Finance reports.

Ilan Ganot, a former hedge fund banker at JPMorgan & Chase Co., has raised $17 million to found a biotechnology company.

Ganot, 40, a former Israeli army captain, decided he wanted to do more than simply support an advocacy group, instead jumping in to apply his knowledge and skills in finance to help promote treatments that could potentially save his son's life.

Sharon Hesterlee, vice president of research at Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, a nonprofit organization focused on the disease, applauds Ganot's efforts.

"He's really an exceptional example of a parent who says, 'I'm going to take my skills and apply them to this problem,'" she said. "You want them to solve world peace after this."

There is currently no cure available for his son Eytani's disease, a condition that occurs when the body fails to produce a protein called dystrophin, which supports muscle fiber strength. Patients suffering from the disease are placed in wheelchairs before their teens and rarely make it beyond their 20s.

Ganot aims to fill a funding gap for promising projects in their early stages, tapping into his background in finance to hopefully speed up the famously slow process of developing new drugs.

"I am seriously focused because I have one problem in my life. We're going to become the center for excellence in DMD," he said.