How I Discovered a Possible Cure for My Son’s Incurable Disease | Patrick Girondi

American Thought Leaders

The Epoch Times

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

Why did Patrick Girondi, a successful singer and songwriter, become the founder and CEO of a pharmaceutical company?

Originally from the South Side of Chicago, Girondi dropped out of high school and became a musician and also, quite by accident, a highly successful commodities trader.

In the early 1990s, his young son Rocco was diagnosed with thalassemia, a rare blood disorder caused by a defect in the globin genes.

Girondi was told by doctors that his son would not live to be a teenager.

So Girondi set out to find a cure. His company has been working on developing gene therapies and treatments for rare blood disorders such as thalassemia and sickle cell disease.

He’s now recruiting for clinical trials, and his son will be among the first to receive his new treatment for thalassemia in the coming months.

When I sat down with Girondi to hear his life’s story, he told me: “San Rocco Therapeutics … has become involved in so many different rare diseases, because people would reach out to us. Parents, in desperation, would read about me, find my story, find me. Sometimes through friends. … Sometimes they would come to me after concerts.”

There are 6,000 rare diseases in the world, also called “orphan diseases,” he says, because nobody wanted to invest in expensive research to find a cure.

Girondi has released seven albums to support rare disease awareness, and he is the author of “Flight of the Rondone: High School Dropout VS Big Pharma: The Fight to Save My Son’s Life.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I can't even begin to tell you the suffering of these kids, these people, not knowing if all
0:05.8	a sudden you're going to be not able to drive your car, not able to walk. It's really so sad
0:11.7	and so tragic. Patrick Girondi is an author, musician, and founder of San Rocco Therapeutics.
0:19.2	His life changed in 1992 when his son was diagnosed with thalassemia,
0:23.6	a rare and often overlooked genetic disease.
0:26.6	They said he wouldn't make it to be a teenager.
0:29.6	Determined to change that outcome, Patrick set out to find a cure.
0:33.6	We use a disabled HIV virus. We put a new gene in it, infuse the gene back into the
0:40.6	patient. Cured. Now we have a product that's 30% better than the approved product and which will
0:47.6	cost 75% less. From Patrick's story, we learn about perseverance and the difficulties of confronting a broken
0:55.1	health care system in America.
0:57.2	The system itself is just so corrupted and so inefficient and something's got to be done.
1:06.9	This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellick.
1:15.6	Patrick Dronty, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. I'm honored thoroughly.
1:17.6	Your son in 1992 was diagnosed with thalassemia, very serious disease similar to sickle cell,
1:25.6	and you set upon yourself to actually find a cure
1:29.8	and you did and tell me how this all happened yeah sure and I'm a rags rich a story I was on
1:35.3	Oprah Winfrey show Ragged the richard Playgirl magazine one of America's most most
1:40.6	eligible bachelors with Sylvester Stallone and Magic Johnson. And I got shocked in
1:48.3	1992, so this is actually my 33rd anniversary. And my son was diagnosed with thalassemia.
1:58.7	They said he wouldn't make it to be a teenager.
2:02.2	Thalassemia is a defective beta-globin gene,
	...

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