Quick Take: A bipolar millionaire who gambled everything for success is faced with the devastating consequences of losing it all.

David Blech’s success story sounds like the modern-day American dream. His first biotech venture investment, Genetic Systems, was sold in 1986 for $294 million. In 1989, he co-founded Icos Corporation, which received start-up funding of $33million. In 1992, Blech made the Forbes 400 list with an estimated wealth of around $300 million. Today, the total value of the biotech companies he helped create is in excess of $144 billion. Along the way, those companies have developed two major cancer drugs, a test to detect and prevent female sterility from Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, among others. Called the “king of biotechnology,” David Blech was the industry’s number one investor for fifteen years. He even had an industry term named after him – “The Blech Effect” – meaning the incredible yield resulting from combining huge start-up investment, technology, and medical science.

But when the documentary begins, David Blech is facing the possibility of prison time after pleading guilty to two counts of securities fraud. He is dealing with the ongoing impact of living with bipolar disorder, which he believes contributed to his financial crimes and gambling addiction. The Blech family are $11 million in debt and facing eviction.

His one remaining asset – and his family’s only potential salvation – is a sizable stake in Intellect Neurosciences, a company developing a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease. If successful, the Blech family would be saved by the return on their investment. At a minimum they would be able to pay their rent and afford the schooling required for their special-needs son; more likely they would be restored to millionaire status.

The film is straightforward in style, free from gimmicks and convoluted timelines, and artfully weaves the extreme ups and downs of Blech’s mental state with the ups and downs of his life. It is realistically bleak; David, his wife Margaret, and his son Evan are all sympathetic characters struggling through a pretty hellish situation. Regardless of the mistakes he may have made, it is touching and painful to watch David Blech confront the challenges of biology and circumstance.

For me, the film would have benefitted from a greater focus on the race to develop the Alzheimer’s drug, a subplot that could have added tonality and dynamism, and which would have been fascinating in its own right. That said, The Blech Effect is worth watching for its intensely intimate insight into the personal life of a man who gambled everything for success, and the devastating consequences of losing it all.

Distributed by Virgil Films, The Blech Effect is available to stream on VOD August 25th.