Independent Lens
Jim Allison: Breakthrough
A visionary doctor bucks skepticism from the medical field, discovering a new way to use the immune system to help defeat cancer.
Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution
Cracking the Code tracks Phil Sharp’s path from a rural Kentucky tobacco farm to winning the Nobel Prize and being a pioneer of the global biotechnology revolution.
- Series
- Independent Lens
- Premiere Date
- October 6, 2025
- Length
- 90 minutes
Director
Bill Haney
Bill Haney is an award-winning filmmaker, inventor, and entrepreneur. His documentary accolades include the Gabriel Prize, a Silver Hugo, and a Pare Lorentz Award. His portfolio as a filmmaker includes award-winning documentaries on socially important subjects such as cancer research, coal mining, and worker exploitation.
- Other ITVS Films
- Jim Allison: Breakthrough
Producer
Carina Chavda
Carina Chavda is an award-winning producer whose work spans social impact documentaries, sports television, and narrative shorts. Her documentaries and short films have screened at several prominent international film festivals.
Producer
Maura Haney
Maura M. Haney is a writer, musician, and entrepreneur. She is co-founder of Skyhawk Therapeutics and a founding employee of Dragonfly Therapeutics. She is a producer at Uncommon Productions, helping develop several documentary films. Maura is the author of The Poisoner, a play inspired by the Flint Water Crisis.
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The Film
Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution tracks Phil Sharp’s journey from his early days in a shack with no indoor water or electricity on a Kentucky tobacco farm to winning the Nobel Prize and pioneering the global biotechnology revolution.
Born into a family that went bankrupt during the Depression, to parents who never attended high school, and challenged with severe dyslexia, determination fueled Phil’s path to Caltech and MIT. There, his discovery of how DNA makes RNA would overturn decades of dogma in biology, shed new light on how genes work, and reveal novel insights into the root causes of disease.
Phil Sharp and his colleagues then transformed these insights into life-saving therapies, founding companies that created new treatments for diabetes, multiple sclerosis, leukemia, and countless other diseases that transformed the world for patients. In 2024 alone, 7.4 billion people took a biotechnology drug, and as of 2025, 4.5 million people work in biotechnology.
Narrated by Mark Ruffalo and weaving interviews with Nobel laureates into insights from Walter Isaacson, Cracking the Code showcases the ability of a creative thinker with an entrepreneurial passion to transform science globally.
