HBS Student Battles ALS
KREMER: With classmate and friend Nate Boaz (right), celebrating at the MBA Class of 2006 Commencement.
Photo by Stuart Cahill
Avichai (“Avi”) Kremer is a man with a mission, and not a lot of time. Diagnosed with ALS early in his first year at HBS, Kremer has become a hero to his classmates and a courageous leader in the face of this frightening disease. “The diagnosis was shocking,” says Kremer, a former officer in the Israel Defense Forces and project manager at a high-tech Israeli defense-industry firm. “I had so many plans for the future, so many goals. Suddenly my goals were to walk, talk, and eat.”
Despite the fact that ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) is a progressive neurodegenerative illness that to date has no cure, Kremer vowed to continue his studies at HBS, far from his network of family and friends in Israel. It was not until the summer after his first year that he returned home. While there, he served as the head of Israel’s ALS nonprofit organization, IsrALS, instituting a campaign that galvanized funding, awareness, and research efforts in that nation. Kremer returned to HBS last January.
Since becoming ill, Kremer has learned that ALS, which kills 130,000 people every year, is not a high priority for either the public or pharmaceutical companies. To stimulate novel treatment ideas and to raise the venture funding needed to get those ideas to market, he launched two organizations. One is named Avi Therapeutics, a for-profit incubator designed to turn promising research into commercialized ALS drugs. The other, Prize4Life (www.prize4life.org), is a nonprofit that will raise $10 million in incentives to encourage researchers to seek effective ALS treatments.
Says Nate Boaz (MBA ’06), Kremer’s friend and the CEO of Prize4Life, “Avi has made a very brave decision to stand and fight this disease, which, if unchecked, will allow him only a few more years of life. With humility and courage, he has shown his classmates and the world that one doesn’t have to wait to make a difference. Avi is doing it right now.” In recognition of his ALS work, Kremer was one of five students to receive this year’s Dean’s Award for outstanding service to HBS and the community. For their part, HBS students, inspired by his example and commitment, have raised over $400,000 to combat ALS.
With his family at his side, Kremer proudly attended the graduation of the Class of 2006. (Due to his semester spent in Israel, he himself is slated to graduate next year.) Despite becoming increasingly debilitated, he carries on his fight, a significant part of which is its call-to-action outreach effort. As Kremer explained in an article in the HBS entrepreneurship publication New Business, “I believe that more than hearing about a tragedy without being able to do anything, people want to be involved. Like me, they want to solve the problem. We’ve opened that door.”
