Steve Duzan was born in Oregon in 1941, though he and his family moved to Seattle, Washington when he was ten years old. He was raised by a single mother after the death of his father. His mother worked as the assistant to the CEO of the department store Bon Marché for twenty years. Wanting to become a lawyer, Duzan attended college at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire, but found it difficult to adjust to life on the East Coast. He returned to the West Coast and finished his undergraduate career at the University of Washington, where he studied political science and history. He entered law school in 1963, but came to realize he did not want to pursue a career as a lawyer. He became interested in entering the business world and began working for a manufacturing company in Seattle, where he was put through a management training program. He worked for an air pollution control company before he was approached by a local group, who asked if he would be the CEO of Arco, a packaging and plastics company. He ran Arco for five years until the company was sold in 1980, after which he had a brief stint helping a friend in his industrial ice machine business. He was then contacted by patent lawyers about a new biotech opportunity headed by two scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Duzan then met with Steve Gillis and Christopher Henney, and the three began the biotechnology company Immunex. Immunex was incorporated in July of 1981 and ran their offices and labs out of an old marina hardware warehouse in Seattle. Immunex later went public in 1983. During Duzan’s tenure as CEO, he oversaw the development, production, and licensing of pharmaceuticals such as Enbrel. After his retirement, Duzan stayed with Immunex for three years as a consultant, before ultimately moving to Arizona with his wife, where he continues to do consulting work for companies.