Click here to subscribe FREE to Ray Hanania's Columns
Prominent producer to write screen adaptation of story on the fight against Thalassemia
G. Cuschieri To Write Screenplay For Wall Street Journal Bestselling Book “Flight of the Rondone”
P.G. Cuschieri, of Joy Road Entertainment and writer/producer of the film Cut Throat City, has agreed to write the screen adaptation of Patrick Girondi’s acclaimed novel, “Flight of the Rondone – High School Dropout VS Big Pharma: The Fight to Save My Son’s Life.”
P.G. Cuschieri was raised in Michigan. He received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from University of Detroit, achieving a Masters in Theology and Liberal Studies. Before moving to Los Angeles he was a basketball coach and teacher in inner-city Detroit.
He currently writes and produces content for his company Joy Road Entertainment.
Girondi, author of ‘Flight of the Rondone,’(roan-doe-nay) is the father of a patient and founder of San Rocco Therapeutics (SRT). SRT, run by the street kid Girondi, has conducted gene therapy clinical trials in the United States with no safety issues, longer than any other entity.
SRT also delivered the first commercial batch of gene therapy to treat Sickle Cell Disease and Thalassemia to the world in 2010. Thalassemia afflicts approximately 2,500, while SCD afflicts 100,000 patients in the US.
The miraculous project, described in the book, ‘Flight Of The Rondone’ was sabotaged by plain and simple greed. As Girondi states in his book, “Third Rock Ventures and Nick Leschly paid $35 million for crap. In public court documents, scientists and executives of both companies admitted that their product was inferior to SRT’s product. Records show that it was avarice and desperation that led to Bluebird Bio and Third Rock Ventures’ decision to steal from our gene therapy project, feebly attempting to fix up their tin lizzie. They then had to cut off competition and did so by destroying the more affordable safer product.”
Third Rock and Bluebird raised over 1.1 billion dollars from unsuspecting investors and CEO Nick Leschly was compensated over $24 million in 2018 alone. Girondi says, “Bluebird Bio had a market cap of $12 billion which became $600 million or a reduction of 95% in a few years. Of course Mr. Leschly, who personally made over $100,000,000 and Third Rock Ventures sold far ahead of the crash. This type of behavior, including fraud and insider trading hurts each and every American by exploding the price of medical therapies and destroying faith in our financial markets.”
As quoted in the New York Times, CEO Leschly said “We had an ‘Apollo 13 moment’. We had to get everyone in the room.”
“According to official documents, this is precisely when Bluebird Bio and Third Rock Ventures sabotaged our life-saving gene therapy project. Public court documents and real-life occurrences will astound the audience and assist them using street sense to understand the mechanics of approving drugs and the workings of big pharma in this heart breaking/warming true story.
Girondi states, “Bluebird’s inferior therapy was recently approved at $2.8 million. We will be over $2,000,000 cheaper per patient. I wrote my concerns to the FDA but, many often say, ‘Follow the money, it will bring you to truth.’”
Girondi continues, “I lay awake at night wondering ‘what’s a father to do.’ Obviously, I’m not the only parent in this situation. Millions of people were purposely turned into drug addicts and over a million died using Oxycontin, a drug pushed by Purdue and the Sackler family. Another drug, Paxil resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 children. Executives knew that the product created suicidal tendencies in children yet no one was even arrested and Glaxo paid an inconsequential fine. “To me, not one tear of even one of these kids or parents is worth all the billions in the world,” Girondi says, “I guess others see it differently.”
The New York Times stated that “Flight of the Rondone” was “made for television.” The book was a #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller in addition to reaching #1 on three Amazon bestseller lists; #1 on Barnes and Noble; and top 100 on USA Today in 2022.
References:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2297044/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Links:
Patrick Girondi: RICO and Big Pharma/Flight of the Rondone: High School Dropout VS Big Pharma: https://youtu.be/1ochbj8Tamg
His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at [email protected].
Follow RayHanania at Twitter
- Hastings champions school safety with mobile panic alert bill - February 6, 2026
- Alderman Silvana Tabares (23) Announces Endorsement of Richard Boykin for 7th Congressional District Seat - February 6, 2026
- A father’s fight to save his bond with his son - February 5, 2026
