A New Breed of Explorer These stalwart captains of industry are taking their passion, innovation, and new ideas around improving the shortfalls within the industry to break new ground. Leslie Gaber started her company at her kitchen table with her 3 and 6 year old daughters by her side. Name: Leslie Gaber Current position: President, Leslie Gaber Associates Education: B.S., University of Maryland, 1979 Date and place of birth: January 1958, Rockaway, N.Y. First Job: Account executive with Ally & Gargano Advertising First Industry-related Job: Pharmaceutical recruiter Professional association: First Interview Network Connected Via: LinkedIn and Facebook Words to Live by: Always do the right thing, therefore you can always hold your head high Hard Working. Conscientious. Leslie Gaber founded her company Leslie Gaber Associates on her reputation, strong ethics, lasting industry relationships, and going above and beyond the call of duty. As owner of the recruitment firm Leslie Gaber Associates, Leslie Gaber’s name has become synonymous with helping to build successful pharma companies, and clients say the industry is more productive and patients are better off because of her efforts. She achieves this by understanding the strengths and needs of both individuals as well as organizations and does a tremendous job of helping pair the two. As the industry changes, Ms. Gaber remains one step ahead, staying informed and responding accordingly. Long before it was fashionable to work in partnership with the industry, Ms. Gaber was offering her business as a true value-added service for both companies and the people they hire. Rather than just send along candidates for an interview, Ms. Gaber takes the time to get to know the organization and its needs. The result is, more often than not, finding the right person for the right job right away. Ms. Gaber has been instrumental in guiding the career decisions of thousands of industry professionals across the country, including many of the top sales representatives, sales managers, sales training and operations personnel as well as marketing and MSL leaders. Influential leaders in pharma and biotech have turned to Ms. Gaber to build their commercial organizations because of her reputation for integrity and her honest approach to business. Her company’s reputation precedes her and Ms. Gaber says every time she attends a medical convention or conference there is always someone who sees her name tag and responds that they didn’t know there actually was a Leslie Gaber. Ms. Gaber began her business at her kitchen table more than 20 years ago, and over the years she has expanded into an office employing more than 12 women. Determined, motivated, and caring Ms. Gaber is available 24/7 to cater to all of her clients’ needs always striving to deliver the best and most personalized services. Today’s networking tools, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, have become valuable tools in allowing Ms. Gaber and her team to reconnect with many of the more than 130,000 industry professionals she has dealt with over the years. An inspiration to women in the industry, Ms. Gaber encourages others to take on challenges and achieve their goals. She gladly mentors others, helping them to explore opportunities and encouraging their career growth. F Connecting People and Places Her insightful management style, ability to integrate information, and the innovative way she rethinks issues big and small have made Candace Kendle, Pharm.D., one of the most respected and accomplished leaders in the CRO industry. Dr. Kendle founded her company, Kendle International, when the CRO industry was still in its infancy, taking a chance on a new business at a time when few other women were doing so. She has taken Kendle from being a small consulting business to one of the largest global Phase II to Phase IV CROs today with more than 50 offices in more than 30 countries across North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and Africa. Perhaps most impressive is her ability to compartmentalize information while truly seeing the big picture. That’s apparent not just in her achievements at Kendle but as a force behind the entire industry. She says the real turning point for the CRO industry was when the first companies went public in the 1990s, which legitimized the CRO field and announced to the business world the maturity of the industry. The next milestone came in 2002 with the development and founding of the Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO), which has given governance, best practices, and a voice to the industry. Dr. Kendle played a significant role in the founding of ACRO and in its leadership and is a past chairman of the organization. Today, she continues to support ACRO as a director emeritus. Dr. Kendle draws enormous pride from the achievements of the group that shepherded the CRO industry from infancy to becoming a global industry. She and her contemporaries all started as small consulting firms with the idea to make clinical development better. Today CROs account for about half of the research workforce involved in drug and medical product development. The relationship with the client also has evolved, and today’s CROs are both the “helping hands" and the “helping brains," with customers looking to them to drive quality and efficiency across the development process. Dr. Kendle sees that relationship evolving further to the point where biopharmaceutical companies and CROs will engage and collaborate at a much higher and much more strategic level — streamlining and rethinking tasks, and developing innovative and creative solutions to drive efficiencies and value across the development enterprise. With her strong vision and innate ability to see and institute creative solutions to any challenge, Dr. Kendle seeks to continuously move with industry developments. She says the big challenge for the industry is to find a cost-effective and efficient clinical development model that meets the needs of the expanding number of biologics compounds. The pharmaceutical industry has grown up around the development of chemical drugs; now there is a need for a rethink to accommodate the growing biologics sector. F Holistic Innovation Dr. Candace Kendle Name: Candace Kendle, Pharm.D. Current position: Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Kendle International Education: Postdoctoral training, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Pharm.D., University of Cincinnati; BSP, University of Cincinnati Date and Place of Birth: January 1947, Cincinnati First Job: Jewelry counter clerk First Industry-related Job: Faculty Member/Investigator, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Dream Job: Architect Professional Associations: Founding member, treasurer, and past chairperson, Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO); Committee of 200; International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology; DIA; American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics; Fortune Most Powerful Women/U.S. State Department Mentoring Program Words to Live By: Buck up — Earl Kendle, her father Insightful. Holistic. Dr. Candace Kendle has been rowing and sculling with the same group of women for 20 years. As Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Kendle International, Dr. Candace Kendle has an amazing ability to challenge and inspire her teams to drive quality, efficiency, and performance even in difficult times. For the past three decades, Warren Levy, Ph.D., has focused his efforts on creating large-market peptide drugs that can be delivered orally and nasally. From his early days, he has believed that there had to be a better way to treat the body’s ailments than with artificial molecules and there had be more effective ways to avoid negative side effects. These tenets solidified his belief in the importance of peptide drugs, and as such he has guided Unigene, as founder and CEO, to the forefront of a revolution: one in which peptides are becoming a major class of therapeutic drugs. Unigene has a patented novel oral and nasal delivery technology that has been shown to effectively deliver significant levels of therapeutically important peptides, including calcitonin, PTH, and insulin. The company also has a patented manufacturing technology for producing peptides cost-effectively and in quantities sufficient to support the worldwide commercialization of peptide therapeutics in convenient dosage forms. In particular, Dr. Levy has made huge breakthroughs in the area of osteoporosis, developing treatments that are based on the body’s own mechanisms of action. His single vision of peptides as the key to superior treatments for osteoporosis — going against conventional wisdom — took guts. Yet, it has paid off handsomely. The company has received an approvable letter from the FDA for Fortical, its nasal calcitonin product for the treatment of osteoporosis. Getting Fortical approved with a small staff of dedicated professionals and seeing it become the most widely prescribed drug in its category will be hugely gratifying to Dr. Levy. As a leader and scientist, Dr. Levy enjoys developing creative solutions to problems and perseveres when he believes he is right, yet acknowledges when he is not, and he seeks the assistance of others if he is unsure. He draws inspiration from his father whose integrity and commitment to business are sadly lacking today. Dr. Levy is concerned by the dearth in honesty, a lack of willingness to accept responsibility or a true work ethic, and a tendency to do things for money and not because they are the right things to do. F Good to the Bones Name: Warren Levy, Ph.D. Current position: Founder and CEO, Unigene Laboratories Education: Ph.D., Northwestern University, Illinois, 1979; B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1974 Date and Place of Birth: March 8, 1952, New York First Job: Postdoctoral fellowship, Roche Institute First Industry-related Job: CEO, Unigene Mentor: His father Words to Live By: Life has no do-overs Analytical. Determined. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Dr. Warren Levy developed sequencing methods and determined the sequence information for interferon, which allowed it to be cloned in 1979. Age is irrelevant to Al Mann. At 84, this entrepreneur, scientist, inventor, and philanthropist still puts in a work week that would exhaust someone half his age. Over the years, Mr. Mann has successfully founded 17 companies, each aimed at developing innovative products and technologies to address unmet medical needs. In 2001, he founded MannKind Corporation to develop the company’s proprietary Technosphere formulation technology that can be applied to a wide range of drug delivery challenges and therapeutic areas. His primary focus currently is on MannKind’s lead product, Afrezza, a novel, ultra rapid-acting mealtime insulin therapy being studied for use in adult patients with diabetes. Despite naysayers who point to the market failure of a previous inhaled insulin product, Mr. Mann is passionate about the promise that Afrezza may hold for the diabetes community and has been the guiding force behind its development, investing a good deal of his own money in the process. Backed by a clinical program that included more than 5,000 adult patients, MannKind submitted an NDA to the FDA last year requesting approval of Afrezza for the treatment of adults with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes for the control of hyperglycemia. In March, MannKind received a complete response from the FDA requesting additional information, and Afrezza currently remains under regulatory review. This has been his greatest challenge so far, according to Mr. Mann, but also an opportunity, since the experience of working closely with the FDA has provided him with valuable insight into the regulatory process. Philanthropy and community service are just as important to Mr. Mann. He founded and chairs the Alfred Mann Foundation, which is devoted to the development of advanced medical products, and the Alfred Mann Institutes at three universities, all of which are focused on medical research. In addition, he has served as director of both the Nevada Cancer Institute and the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation. He has received more than 70 honors, including life achievement and humanitarian awards, from the public and private sectors. F AlfreD Mann Tireless Champion of Health Advances As a child, Al Mann played the piano and oboe, and he was a singer. What would take most people several centuries to accomplish Al Mann, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of MannKind Corp., has achieved in only 84 years. Name: Alfred E. Mann Current position: Founder, CEO, and Chairman, MannKind Corp. Education: B.A. and M.S. in Physics, UCLA; Honorary Doctorate degrees — University of Southern California, Johns Hopkins University, Western University, and The Technion Institute, Israel; Research Professor, USC and Adjunct Professor, Department of Bioengineering, UCLA Date and place of birth: Nov. 6, 1925, Portland, Ore. First Job: Magazine sales at age 7 First Industry-related Job: Research physicist at Technicolor Corp. Dream Job: What he’s doing right now Professional associations: National Academy of Engineering; American Diabetes Association Words to Live by: Treat people with respect and integrity Visionary. Persistent. Frustration can, in the right hands, be a powerful motivating force. That’s just the effect it had on Jeff Kozloff and the result was the creation of the healthcare market research company Verilogue. It all began when Mr. Kozloff was working as a pharma marketing research consultant. He’d just spent a week traveling between four cities for facility research, had gained five pounds from eating M&Ms, and was coming home without the information he had hoped to capture earlier in the week. He was seeking insights, reality, and the truth. Instead, he got hypotheticals and answers people thought he wanted to hear. The traditional process was broken, he realized, and the industry needed a better way to gather information. He knew it could be done; he’d read an article about a consumer packaged goods company that created a research lab where mothers were given hats with cameras, and the company observed how they interacted with their children and other mothers. This research changed the company’s approach to product development and marketing by highlighting how customers truly act and what they value in their everyday environment. It was then that Mr. Kozloff remembered a quote from A.G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble: If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo. Go to the jungle. For years, pharma companies had relied on antiquated research methods and were spending millions on after-the-fact research, surveying customers for memory recall, attempting to recreate the facts, and asking physicians to project their behaviors during contrived exercises. As a result, they were missing an opportunity to capture real-world decision-making by observing physician-patient interactions in their natural environment. So Mr. Kozloff decided to change the whole model and remove the researchers, the facilities, and ultimately, the simulated bias from the research process. Reality would only come from listening to customers in their natural environment. Insights would best be derived from a large, nationwide database of naturally occurring dialogues to mine repeatedly. And the truth could be verified by a team of linguists and communication experts to derive the situational and emotional drivers of customer behavior. So that’s what he built. Clients say Verilogue’s vast database of physician-patient conversations and patient charts enable them to get a holistic understanding of patients at various points in the treatment continuum and, most importantly, tailor their communication tools to incorporate terms and imagery that best speak to patient and physician needs. Ambitious, Mr. Kozloff likes to think big, innovate, and push tradition, continually challenging himself and his team with aspirational goals. One such goal is an upcoming acquisition — stay tuned. F The Truth is In the Telling Name: Jeff Kozloff Current position: Co-Founder, President, and CEO, Verilogue Education: B.S., Economics, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Date and Place of Birth: January 1977, Harrisburg, Pa. First Job: Golf course attendant First Industry-related Job: Analyst, I.S.O. Healthcare Group Professional Associations: PMRG, SPBT, CASRO Words to Live By: Carpe diem — seize the day Ambitious. Versatile. Jeff Kozloff and Verilogue have a partnered with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to make a direct impact on the well-being of a deserving child and his or her support network. Jeff Kozloff prides himself on being able to jump into most situations, rapidly digest large quantities of information, capture a holistic view of the situation, and make critical decisions — all of which come in handy as the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Verilogue. Brendan Buckley M.D., D.Phil., may be a man of many degrees and titles, but overcoming the barriers of poorly conducted clinical trials that are preventing lifesaving drugs from reaching the market is his passion. Dr. Buckley’s resume is impressive; he is a clinical professor of medicine and pharmacology, European Centre for Clinical Trials in Rare Diseases, at the University College Cork, Ireland, his alma mater. In addition to Dr. Buckley’s extensive and illustrious career at the University College Cork Medical School and as a consultant endocrinologist at the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork, he has participated as a principal investigator (PI) in many global clinical trials. One of the most challenging assignments of his career involved a clinical trial. In 1997, he was involved with designing the PROSPER trial, which entailed recruiting and randomizing 2,184 participants in Ireland in 46 weeks for the study, and getting a no comment audit report at the end. It is his many years of experience in clinical development that led him to focus on the often frustrated role of the investigator in clinical research, and explore new and innovative ways to improve investigator site performance. In 2001, along with a team of fellow principal investigators, Professor Buckley became one of the founders of Firecrest Clinical, an Irish pharmaceutical healthcare company dedicated to driving investigator site performance. Essentially what is needed, Dr. Buckley suggests, is a fresh approach to the traditional model of training investigators; i.e., the investigator meeting. While never dismissing the importance of investigator meetings from a networking and interactive perspective, he maintains that they are simply failing as a means to educate investigators to a required standard on a clinical study. His passionate belief in the need for a transformational means of changing the paradigm has given rise to an innovative protocol-based training solution that is a hybrid model of on-the-spot training, both for investigators and their site staff. Second to Dr. Buckley’s commitment to improving drug-development processes is his love of the sea. In fact, his dream job would that of a ship’s captain. So, it’s no surprise to anyone who knows the good doctor that his philanthropic efforts extend to helping the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He is inspired by its extraordinary volunteer crews, who rescue more than 8,000 people every year, sometimes in appalling conditions. He also is involved in various medical charities that fund research for rare diseases, especially muscular dystrophy. F Dr. Brendan Buckley sings opera in a bad baritone, but never knows the words, so he invents pseudo-Italian lyrics ones to cover up. Firecrest Clinical’s Co-Founder and Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Brendan Buckley is dedicated to driving site performance through a fresh approach to training investigators. Name: Brendan Buckley, M.D., D.Phil., FRCPI Current position: Founder and Director of Medical Affairs, Firecrest Clinical Ltd. and Firecrest Clinical Inc. Education: Medical graduate, UCC, 1979; Doctoral graduate, Biochemistry, Oxford University, 1974; Master of Science, UCC, 1972; Bachelor of Science, University College Cork (UCC), 1970 Date and place of birth: May 7, 1950, Cork, Ireland First Job: Postdoctorate fellow First Industry-related Job: Junior doctor in an emergency department Dream Job: Ship’s captain Professional associations: Fellow, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI); Fellow, Faculty of Pathologists (RCPI); Fellow, Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine, Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons Professional Mentor: Sir Hans Krebs, who supervised his doctorate, and many teachers in medical school who passed the torch Connected Via: LinkedIn and Facebook Words to Live by: Never be afraid to try Innovative. Outgoing. Creating a Sea Change Amid the all-too-frequent negative headlines about the life-sciences industry, the philanthropic and professional contributions that improve the lives of millions of people living with chronic illnesses are often overlooked. Brenda Snow, who has multiple sclerosis, embodies this ideal in spirit and practice through the company she founded to give patients a voice. At the core of what Snow Companies does is recognize that patients are people. Ms. Snow knows from personal experience that just because someone is diagnosed with a chronic condition, it doesn’t mean they aren’t smart, aware, and motivated to manage their condition. In fact, she knows that those qualities are enhanced by facing obstacles, such as finding appropriate treatments and doctors that would make living with a chronic condition less challenging. Ms. Snow bridges the gap between the corporate pharmaceutical world and that of patients through her Patient Ambassador programs, a direct-to-patient partnership with the industry to educate and empower patients. This model was inspired by her need to reach out to people with MS and share her story. Today, that inspirational idea has changed how pharmaceutical companies reach patients, not just with advertising campaigns, but touching patient audiences on a personal level. The journey began 10 years ago when Ms. Snow started working with a leading company in the MS space to launch the first-of-its-kind patient ambassador program. Starting her company with three employees in the attic of her house, she has since transformed her vision for patient-to-patient outreach into a global network of ambassadors that encompass numerous disease categories, representing more than 16 brands, for the top biotech and pharma companies. Ms. Snow says, most importantly, she is assisting the industry in truly delivering on the goals of patient-centricity and patient solutions. On a corporate level, Ms. Snow has changed the way pharmaceutical companies are viewed and how their products can really affect and change people’s lives for the better. And on a personal level, patients who have been fortunate enough to be a part of her patient programs feel empowered and forever changed. She has brought smiles to the faces of many simply because she wanted to help them share their stories with others. Ms. Snow’s tireless spirit continues to bring hope and opportunity to thousands of patients whom she will never personally meet. Ms. Snow’s tenaciousness and passion inspire those around her, leading to her being a two-time PharmaVOICE 100 honoree. Beyond her professional achievements, Ms. Snow has helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for research to support the patient community. Whether it’s helping to sponsor MS walks, or making mortgage payments for patients’ families who otherwise would’ve lost their homes, Ms. Snow has generously given her time and money. Her primary mission is serving patients and their families, since she understands all too well what it’s like to face physical and financial challenges, having been diagnosed with MS more than 17 years ago. F A Port in a Storm Brenda Snow appeared as an extra in the 1984 Tom Hanks movie Bachelor Party; she is in the wedding scene on the bride’s side, second row behind the actors playing the bride’s parents.Name: Brenda Snow Current position: Founder and CEO, Snow Companies Education: B.A., University of California, Los Angeles Date and place of birth: March 1964, California First Job: Photography store retailer First Industry-related Job: Consultant Dream Job: Photographer Professional mentor: Corbin Wood, business partner Professional associations: Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association; Board of Directors, 2011, Can Do Multiple Sclerosis Center Connected Via: LinkedIn and Facebook Words to Live by: There is no limit to what a person can do or achieve as long as you don’t care who gets the credit Perspicacious. Memorable. With just $1,000 and a dream of changing how information is processed and delivered to health authorities, Jim Walker founded Octagon Research Solutions. When the FDA began to accept CRFs/CRTs on disc he saw this as an opportunity to provide critically needed solutions to the evolving challenges facing regulatory organizations. Bringing together standards and technologies to affect process change remains a challenge for the industry, and it’s one Mr. Walker and Octagon continually find new ways to address. He recognizes that synchronizing processes and increasing automation to reduce island-to-island inefficiencies within clinical R&D will enable pharmaceutical organizations to develop new therapies and bring them to market more quickly and efficiently. Mr. Walker has continued to remain a front-runner in recognizing the next phase or trend in document/data management requirements. He has guided the growth of his company, expanding the services and technologies provided to meet the critical needs of the industry to be in compliance with emerging standards. He has steered Octagon through the recession and continues to generate innovative and transformative ideas. What sets Mr. Walker apart from others is his commitment to sharing knowledge and learning experiences. When people contact him with a question or issue, he will provide guidance and often potential solutions, regardless of whether the person he is speaking with is, or ever has been, a client. This collaborative spirit has been integrated into the Octagon culture and is demonstrated by many of the company’s initiatives, including position papers on industry trends, summit meetings bringing industry colleagues together to discuss and help each other with issues, and a blog to address subjects important to life-sciences leaders. Mr. Walker has created rules of thumb for Octagon and he serves as a role model in following these principles, particularly in servicing clients, community, and colleagues with commitment and integrity. This is reflected in the accolades Octagon and Mr. Walker have received. In 2003, he was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Emerging Company category, and the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 Rising Star that same year. For five years in a row, 2003 to 2007, Octagon was named to the Philly 100, and in 2004 the company was named to Deloitte & Touche Fast 500 in the country for its 4,372% growth rate as well as the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 in the region. Octagon again received the Deloitte & Touche Fast 500 and Fast 50 recognitions in 2007 and 2008. In 2008, Octagon was awarded an Inc. 5000, and a Davey Award, an international creative award focused exclusively on honoring outstanding creative work. His entrepreneurial spirit continues to brew and Mr. Walker says someday he would like to start a pharmaceutical company. F The Transformer Name: Jim Walker Current position: Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Octagon Research Solutions Education: MBA, Duke University; M.S., Rutgers University; B.S., Villanova University Date and place of birth: January 1970, London, Ontario, Canada First job: Caddy at Saucon Valley Country Club First industry job: Regulatory affairs at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute Professional Mentor: His father Connected via: LinkedIn, Plaxo Persistent. Tenacious. Jim Walker has been dubbed “the turkey sandwich making specialist," a moniker he earned as part of Octagon’s community outreach program, which delivers food to the homeless in Philadelphia. Rob Likoff has a wide range of accomplishments and interests and he’s as colorful and likable as the distinctive socks he wears. Before founding Group DCA in 2000, Mr. Likoff gained experience and success in virtually all areas of the industry — from research and development to product development and marketing. His many roles included bacteriologist, award-winning research biologist, sales rep, product director, VP of cardiovascular marketing, and VP/business unit head at Novartis before conceiving the idea for Group DCA, an innovative e-detailing business. It was the advice of one mentor, Alexander Strunc, that prompted Mr. Likoff to take the entrepreneurial plunge, despite the warning that at the beginning starting a business might look like the Grand Canyon. Mr. Strunc did add that once he started, it would look more like a crack in the pavement. The result of Mr. Likoff’s leap is a group of companies that constitutes five specialized divisions offering multichannel, integrated programs designed to serve the increasingly diverse communications needs of pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals with the mission of changing behavior. Among the companies are Cue, which focuses on patient education, adherence, and persistency programs; Graphic Details, which conducts promotional programs, such as e-detailing, online and convention-based; iLights, a pharmaceutical manufacturer-sponsored healthcare publishing agency; Insight Exchange, which offers online KOL-focused programs; and Park Street Research, a provider of online market research. Mr. Likoff says Group DCA’s mission is to leverage technology to create a better, more vibrant, and interesting way to communicate with physicians, patients, and healthcare providers. By developing customized messaging that is both meaningful and targeted, Group DCA engages its customers, who benefit from relevant bi-directional communications. Finding ways to help the industry change the way it communicates with its customers has been a significant challenge, Mr. Likoff maintains, but it is vital the industry learn to communicate with customers the way they want to be communicated with — not the way the industry wishes they did. Beyond his achievements in establishing Group DCA, Mr. Likoff and the company developed Diagram, a pioneering software application that delivers real-time targeted messaging based on physician response. Continual innovation is key for Mr. Likoff, who is focused on keeping Group DCA growing and helping people to develop and possibly spin off a new business idea. Mr. Likoff believes he has the perfect job, one in which he can use his vision to invent new ideas and his good sense to listen when other people have ideas. He has made it his mission to create an environment where ideas come to life. Outside of work, Mr. Likoff is a frequent speaker at the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association and serves on the local chapter’s advisory board. He is also a board member and leads fundraising efforts for the East Hampton library. Supporting his local library is important to Mr. Likoff, who loves to read and believes everyone should have access to books. An avid basketball fan, Mr. Likoff is also a wine aficionado, enjoys playing tennis, and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. F Rob Likoff has more than 400 pairs of shoes — and he’s still shopping. Name: Rob Likoff Current position: CEO and Co-Founder, Group DCA Education: MBA, City University of New York; M.S., Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine; B.S., SUNY Stony Brook Date and Place of Birth: Jan. 20, 1954, New York First Job: Research biologist, Merck First Industry-related Job: Research biologist, Merck Dream Job: Winemaker Professional Mentors: His co-founding partner, Jack Davis; Alexander Strunc; Bob Slater Connected Via: LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, and Twitter Passionate. Opinionated. Jim Walker, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Octagon Research Solutions, has always exhibited an entrepreneurial spirit and demonstrated the ability to think outside the box. Entrepreneur Rob Likoff has led his company, Group DCA, to nearly four-fold growth in the past four years alone. From early in her career, Janet Wolfe, Ph.D., has been adept at identifying industry trends. when her family moved to the Boston area in 1999, she recognized the abundance of emerging biotech and pharmaceutical companies and foresaw high demand for experienced pharmaceutical chemists. She rented a 2,000-square-foot facility in Watertown, Mass., and formed Wolfe Laboratories. More recently, it became clear to Dr. Wolfe that the large pharma business model had shifted to one where a significant percentage of the pipeline will originate from small pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, and academia. In response, she has expanded Wolfe Laboratories’ integrated IND-enabling services to accommodate increased throughput of biologics and small molecules by collaborating with external drug discovery partners for pharmaceutical evaluation and preclinical development. Dr. Wolfe has stayed ahead of the competition by customizing preclinical discovery and development services for her clients. Many customers have advanced their programs through various stages in clinical trials and successfully licensed products for commercial use. The greatest challenge the industry faces is filling its pipelines, Dr. Wolfe says. This is fuelled by two interconnected problems: an inability to produce molecules quicker than the current attrition rates and a late-stage attrition rate that is too high. She believes there is a need for companies to conduct proof-of-concept studies earlier to reduce the number of compounds that fail late and thereby free resources to devote to early-stage development. These are some of the challenges for which Dr. Wolfe has been seeking solutions. Through her strong, efficient, and thorough business practices, Wolfe Laboratories has become known as the company that does it right the first time. As a testament to Dr. Wolfe’s influence in the biopharmaceutical industry, she has received multiple achievement awards. In 2007 Wolfe Laboratories was ranked as one of the top 100 woman-led businesses in Massachusetts by The Commonwealth Institute; in 2008, Dr. Wolfe was named Entrepreneur to Watch by MIT Enterprise Forum and Boston’s Entrepreneur of the Year by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce; in 2009, Dr. Wolfe was awarded the Leadership Prize from Women Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology, and she was honored as Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist; and this year Wolfe Laboratories is an Eastern Regional Finalist in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Dream Big Small Business of the Year Award. Her commitment extends beyond the workplace to the broader community. Dr. Wolfe has been involved in community service her entire life. From volunteering at soup kitchens when she was a child to teaching underserved children as a young professor, and even while developing and managing her own business, Dr. Wolfe continues to make time for others. She is director of the Institute for Pediatric Innovation, which is striving for improved medical products and medications for babies and children. She fosters philanthropy at Wolfe Laboratories by giving to organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The company also sponsors employee riders in the Pan-Mass Challenge. Dr. Wolfe is also co-chair of the Math Science and Technology Initiative (MSTi) with the Massachusetts United Way, and last year her company hosted the 2009 Wolfe Biopharma Conference, Filling Biopharma’s Pipeline, and donated all registration fees to MSTi for the continuation of educational programs that motivate and teach children about the importance of pursuing careers in the sciences. In October this year, the company will host another conference, Emerging Markets and Technologies: 2020 Vision, and again will donate proceeds raised to MSTi. F Predicting Trends Name: Janet Wolfe, Ph.D. Current position: President and Founder, Wolfe Laboratories Inc. Education: Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Kansas, 1992; B.S., Chemistry, University of the Sciences, Philadelphia Date and place of birth: August 1963, Philadelphia First Job: Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center First Industry-Related Job: Wolfe Laboratories Creative. Determined. Dr. Janet Wolfe would love to be a professional musician and if given the opportunity and training would like to be part of a Broadway musical. It takes a great leader to listen to good advice, draw knowledge from it, and put it into practice. It takes a truly in-touch leader to find lessons from all walks of life. Peter Derycz is just such an individual. Mr. Derycz started Derycz Scientific with a mission to bring published science to the masses. He has derived valuable lessons from his mentor, Thomas Karger, a man he describes as the only true scientific and medical publisher he knows of, a man of tremendous wisdom. But equally, he learns important life lessons from others, accepting knowledge from multiple sources. For example, a homeless man approached Mr. Derycz during a walk on the beach in Santa Monica with his first child and told him to teach his child those things that he, Mr. Derycz, didn’t know. Brief encounters like these have helped to shape him. This eagerness to absorb knowledge from multiple sources explains the man behind the idea. Since his college days, Mr. Derycz has been on a mission to help people learn. He posted a note on a UCLA message board more than 20 years ago with the words: “Do you need to know something about anything? Call Peter." Today, the $10 he spent on a Sharpie and white paper has grown into a business that had more than $14 million in revenue in 2009. And Mr. Derycz, founder, chairman, president, and CEO is not stopping anytime soon. In the days before a Google search was possible, people from all walks of life came to Mr. Derycz with questions, both specific and general in nature. He relished the idea that he was helping others learn. After accumulating a series of published articles, he would deliver a stack of documents to his client at the end of the day. In simplest terms, this is essentially what he is still doing today. While an initial online search may bring clients to the doorsteps of copyrighted materials, they still need services such as the ones offered by Derycz if they want to dig any deeper — similar to what Apple’s iTunes enables consumers to do with music. With such a passion for information, it makes sense that he would be as dedicated to knowledge sharing beyond the workplace. Starting in July, Derycz Scientific is supporting Room to Read as its preferred charity. The company will be supporting the organization in its efforts to build libraries for children in the developing world. The company is committed to helping Room to Read build at least one library in 2011. The first library will be built in Nepal and the company will rely on customers to select the next country. Room to Read also supports lifelong scholarships for young girls in these countries so that they have an opportunity to seek an education as an alternative to marrying young, working on a farm, or worse, being sent into undesirable professions. Mr. Derycz says he and his team are excited to inform customers and partners that each time they deliver scientific information, they’re part of a greater philanthropic cause. The impoverished world of today is the developing world of tomorrow, and will be the users of scientific information 10 to 20 years from now, he says. F Name: Peter Derycz Current position: Founder, Chairman, President, and CEO, Derycz Scientific Education: B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1989 Date and place of birth: June 1962, Los Angeles First Job: Waiter, cashier, cook First Industry-related Job: Library gopher for researchers at UCLA Professional mentors: Thomas Karger, a scientific and medical publisher Professional associations: Room to Read Dreamer. Idealist. The Founder, Chairman, President, and CEO of Derycz Scientific Peter Derycz is tireless in his quest to gather published knowledge and make it accessible to those who need it most. Peter Derycz is known as one of the founders of the “pay-as-you-go" approach for acquiring and delivering scientific information. The well-being of employees is a top priority for Deborah Wood. So it was a moment of true satisfaction when her healthcare education company, DWA Healthcare Communications Group, was selected to be on a list of companies by the Indianapolis Star newspaper as an Indianapolis Top Workplace, decided through a survey of company employees. Ms. Wood says she measures success not only on what DWA achieves in its business, but what it achieves in the corporate community and how that is able to foster a sense of well-being across the corporation. This recognition on behalf of her staff is a career highlight that will remain unmatched. With a focus on sensitivity and integrity, as well as creativity, she has instilled five core values into her company that are known at DWA as the H4S: honorable, hungry, healthy, humble, and smart. Passionate about DWA’s mission statement, rather than its financial statement, Ms. Wood has a deep belief and enthusiasm for what the company does, why, how, and what results from its endeavors. These are living, breathing values that are never assigned to a paperweight, Ms. Wood contends. Her passion is bolstered by her tenaciousness in pursuit of excellence and she perseveres through external obstacles, internal resistance, and resource shortages. When the opportunity to go to the next level presents itself, she persists until the result has been achieved. An example of this was in 2003 when DWA decided to respond to the increased regulation and scrutiny the industry was facing with a comprehensive compliance program for DWA and for the benefit of clients and partners. Previously, DWA had relied on the interpretations of others and followed their lead on how to maneuver through the changes. Over time, Ms. Wood says it became important that DWA become the compliance experts and in response the company fashioned its program around the OIG’s seven elements of an effective compliance program. The result is a compliance program that Ms. Wood is deeply proud of. Always eager to improve her skills, Ms. Wood seizes every opportunity to benchmark or question peers inside and outside the company, fellow business owners in and outside the industry, and consultants. She relishes hearing different experiences, perspectives, best practices, and diverse opinions. She believes in bringing the outside in to challenge herself and her colleagues to think differently and take new paths. Ms. Wood also encourages learning through the company’s continuing professional development program and DWA University. Personally, she is eager to take courses that will push her to think more broadly. She is committed to growing a dynamic corporation in a challenging and changing industry. F Mission Driven Deborah Wood, Founder and CEO of DWA Healthcare Communications Group, is tenacious in her pursuit of excellence and she perseveres through external obstacles, internal resistance, and resource shortages; when the opportunity to go to the next level presents itself, she persists until she gets there. NAme: Deborah Wood Current position: Founder and CEO, DWA Healthcare Communications Group Education: M.A., University of Nebraska; B.A., University of Evansville; A.S. Vincennes University Date and Place of Birth: Oct. 17, 1956, Pittsburg First Job: Waiting tables First Industry-related Job: Subcontracting for a medical meeting planner/consultant Dream Job: Professional in theater Connected Via: LinkedIn and Twitter Words to Live By: Keep learning; when you stop learning, you stop being relevant Passionate. Persistent. Deborah Wood held cue cards, under the direction of Barney McNulty, the inventor of the cue card system, for Bob Hope for a special that was taped at Southern Methodist University. Robert Paull is a serial entrepreneur; he co-founded the venture capital firm Lux Capital, the publishing company Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report, The research business Lux Research, the biotechnology company Genocea Biosciences, as well as the Johns Hopkins University start-up Kala Pharmaceuticals, which is focused on mucosal drug delivery. With a degree in architecture, building comes naturally to Mr. Paull, whether it’s constructing companies or designing buildings. Going from an architect’s background to Ph.D.-level expertise in cellular immunology within months was a steep learning curve, even for Mr. Paull. But the result was worth the effort: Genocea Biosciences, a company focused on vaccine discovery and development. Through Genocea, he partnered with the nonprofit foundation PATH to develop a novel vaccine for streptococcus pneumoniae, a leading cause of death of children under the age of 5. Mr. Paull didn’t stop there. He recognized the technology behind Genocea has the potential to develop vaccines for some of the world’s most complicated pathogens. Genocea subsequently partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a malaria vaccine, a neglected disease that many in big pharma turn their back on. In the winter of 2009, Genocea closed one of the largest life-sciences venture financings at the time and added one of the most successful global pharmaceutical companies as a new investor: GSK’s venture fund SR-One. Mr. Paull was nominated as Biotech CEO of the Year and received the Best Vaccine Startup award at the World Vaccine Congress. Genocea also was selected as one of the World’s Most Intriguing Startups by BusinessWeek and won a Fierce 15 Biotech Award as one of the 15 most promising biotech start-ups. Mr. Paull’s out-of-the-box thinking to address the developing world’s problems even as a start-up company is causing many in the venture capital industry to rethink how the life-sciences industry can help with some of the world’s most dire global health problems. He has learned a lot along the way from some highly accomplished entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including Larry Bock, co-founder of more than 17 biotech companies, which have achieved a cumulative market cap of more than $20 billion; Bill Conway, co-founder and chief investment officer of The Carlyle Group; and Chris Brody, former partner of Warburg Pincus and former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. What concerns Mr. Paull in the broader community is a combination of scientific “brain drain" and the lack of K-12 education in entrepreneurship and science. As Dean Kamen has said, “society gets what it celebrates. There are thousands of teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not a realistic outcome for even 1% of them, while becoming a scientist or engineer could be." F Name: Robert Paull Current position: Co-Founder, Managing General Partner, Lux Capital Management Education: B.S., Architecture, University of Virginia Date and place of birth: 1976, Massachusetts First Job: Architect First Industry-related job: Founding CEO of Genocea Biosciences Dream job: Currently have it Professional mentors: Larry Bock, Bill Conway, Chris Brody Professional Associations: University Of Virginia Jefferson Scholars Foundation; Motorola’s Research Visionary Board, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Connected via: LinkedIn Perseverant. Entrepreneurial. Robert Paull, Co-Founder and Managing General Partner of Lux Capital Management, is trailblazing new ways to spur innovation in the developing world. Robert Paull is a fan of and has been to multiple U.S. air guitar championships, as a spectator. Family: Wife, three children Reading List: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk; The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney, Bernard O’Donoghue Hobbies: Sailing, watching rugby, painting Bucket List: Visit Antarctica, sell a novel Giving Back: Royal National Lifeboat Institution; various medical charities involved in funding research for rare diseases, especially muscular dystrophy Inspiration: Nelson Mandela Top iPod downloads: Planxty Live 2004; Burn the Black Suit bu Juliet Turner; Bryn Terfel Sings Handel Screensaver: His baby grandniece Life Lessons: Noli illegitimi carborundum — bog Latin for “don’t let the bastards grind you down" Most Unusual Place Visited: The ancient Celtic monastic site on Sceilg Mhichil rock, nine miles of the west coast of Ireland Under the cloak of invisibility: Shadow referees at important rugby games involving his team, Munster, and whisper advice to them to correct them Professor Brendan Buckley, M.D., D.Phil., co-founder and director of medical affairs at Firecrest Clinical, has extensive experience in clinical trials and is a member of numerous independent data and safety monitoring boards for medium to large clinical trials. He also has published extensively on both the results of clinical trials and their methodology. In addition to his role at Firecrest, Dr. Buckley is extremely active giving back to the clinical community. He is a clinical professor of medicine and pharmacology in the School of Medicine, University College Cork (UCC), and the National University of Ireland. He is also a consultant physician in endocrinology and metabolism at Bon Secours Hospital Cork, and is director of the European Centre for Clinical Trials in Rare Diseases, UCC. The list of his other appointments is considerable. Among them are chairman of the Advisory Committee on Human Medicines, the Irish Medicines Board; a member of the Panel of Experts of European Medicines Agency (EMA); a member, Special Advisory Group on Diabetes and Endocrinology EMA; formerly Ireland’s representative (by Ministerial appointment) to the EMEA Committee on Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP); formerly European Commission appointee as one of three members representing European Academia on the Working Group of Interested Parties on Orphan Medicinal Products of EMEA; chairman of the statutory Anti-Doping Committee of the Irish Sports Council; formerly Chairman of the UK Government regulatory body the Scientific SubCommittee on Pesticides, and Deputy Chairman of HM Advisory Committee on Pesticides; external referee to the EC Directorate-General Research; and member of the Board, the Irish Medicines Board, the national regulator of medicines. In terms of Firecrest, the company he co-founded in 2001 with a small group of clinical trials investigators to develop solutions to the growing problem of haphazard communications taking place in most clinical trials, 2009 was an exciting year: eight of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies recognized the value of Firecrest’s new model.F Getting Personal with Dr. Brendan buckley Degrees of Excellence In a quest to bring knowledge to people who need it, Peter Derycz has spent the past 20 years building teams and companies that deliver scientific information. For example, in 1987, he founded Infotrieve, a provider of solutions for corporate information centers. What is more remarkable is that each of those organizations is alive and well today and making a contribution to getting scientific information to the right people, at the right time. He also has extensive venture capital experience; he has raised more than $100 million for various companies since 2001. Today, as founder, chairman, president, and CEO of Derycz Scientific, his company helps acquire and deploy the important knowledge needed to make medical advancements. One of the big challenges for an entrepreneur he says is blending two families, a personal family and a business family; it’s something he and all entrepreneurs enjoy and thrive on, whether they admit it or not. He graciously notes that his family is the foundation for his success and remains one of his biggest sources of motivation. Information is Mr. Derycz’s passion, and he draws his inspiration from like-minded individuals, among them: Eugene Garfield, founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (now part of Thomson Reuters) whom he credits as the unacknowledged inspiration for Google’s ranking engine; John Cotton Dana, the Che Guevara of the information industry, as Mr. Derycz refers to him; and Thomas Karger, the only true scientific and medical publisher he knows of, a man of tremendous wisdom. Mr. Derycz says while the advent of search engines and information sharing via the Internet, intranet, e-mail, social networking, and so on has opened up access, people lack the ability to focus on seeking and absorbing solid, trusted, and vetted information. Now that most scientific literature has gone electronic, one of the big challenges is how the life-sciences industry will keep its drug pipelines full when its researchers are barraged with a flood of information that they don’t have the time, tools, or even skill sets to deal with. While he believes the electronic world is a wonderful thing, he thinks it will take a generation to figure out how to manage all of the changing flow of information. F Peter Derycz • Delivering True Information Family: Wife, four children Reading List: Germinal and L’argent by Emile Zola Hobbies: Reading, cycling Inspiration: His family; Tolstoy; Eugene Garfield, the unacknowledged inspiration for Google’s ranking engine; John Cotton Dana, information industry leader; and Thomas Karger, publisher Most Unusual Place Visited: Kathmandu, Nepal Life Lessons: Teach your child to learn those things that you do not know Under the cloak of invisibility: Remain in the present and see if his surroundings change Getting Personal with Peter Derycz Twenty years ago, Leslie Gaber took a gutsy and ultimately hugely successful first step. She started Leslie Gaber and Associates and she built it on a powerful mission: to create a company with high ethical standards that would benefit clients as they needed talent to build their commercial organization and candidates as they explored new career opportunities. Today, Ms. Gaber can boast having placed more than 2,000 people in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, an achievement that has positively impacted a lot of families. All the while, her office remains as cozy and down to earth as when she started. Ms. Gaber says the office consists of 12 women working in a relatively small area. At one time, they even shared their space with two dogs and a guinea pig. It’s an unusual environment, she says, but it works for her and her colleagues. A highly respected leader in the recruitment business, Ms. Gaber says the biggest challenge in her line of work is building a sales team when there is a very limited time line. But given her knack for finding the right fit, and that she is a workaholic, she has been able to achieve this difficult task time and again. Ms. Gaber draws valuable lessons from her mother and finds inspiration from the clients that she has formed long-term relationships with over the years. In fact it was her mother who advised her to get into the recruitment business back in 1987, having been a recruiter herself. The impact the pharmaceutical industry had on her mother’s life is another great motivating force for Ms. Gaber. Her mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2002 without a very good prognosis. Though she passed away in 2009, the additional seven years of her life were a result of pharmaceutical reps and managers who directed Ms. Gaber to the physician who treated her mother and prolonged her life. For that, she says, she will be forever grateful. Ms. Gaber says the most valuable advice she has received is to identify clients where there is mutual respect and values and know when to walk away from others. Next on her list of goals is to create an online placement network dedicated exclusively to the pharma and biotech industry. F Leslie Gaber • Giant Impact from a Small Space Family: Daughters, Amy and Jessica Hobbies: Gardening, piano, traveling Giving Back: Cancer and cardiology funds Bucket List: Become an accomplished pianist Screensaver: A flower logo created by her daughter, Jessica Life Lessons: Be willing to walk away Getting Personal with Leslie Gaber Dr. Candace Kendle • Knowledge Sharing With a depth and breadth of knowledge of the industry that few can rival, Candace Kendle, Pharm.D., has not only built a company, but also a management team that continues to be entrepreneurial in spirit. Dr. Kendle, chairman and CEO of Kendle International, has an amazing ability to challenge and inspire her teams to drive quality, efficiency, and performance even in difficult times. With energy, vision, and creativity she gets others to think differently, continually challenging her staff to approach issues from multiple perspectives. Those who work with her say her ability to quickly assess a situation and get right to the heart of an issue is second to none. Her approach to management is holistic, because although she is a visionary, she is not a blue-sky thinker. Rather, she is able to articulate a vision and approach that is both implementable and practical. Her no-nonsense, calm approach to management brings out the best in people, and this helps her to let others share her vision and motivate them to reach their goals. A role model, Dr. Kendle is extremely active in passing her knowledge and experience to future generations of female leaders, and she provides inspiration to women of all ages on how to succeed at the highest levels of business. She also mentors up-and-coming managers within her organization. Dr. Kendle is a member of the Committee of 200, an organization of preeminent women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders, and she serves as a mentor for the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Dr. Kendle also believes it is important to focus on family. She manages to juggle a full personal and professional life and remain an incredibly positive and motivating force. And she believes strongly in giving back to her community. One of the issues that concerns her most is reading and comprehension, particularly in young people and in vulnerable or underserved families. Dr. Kendle says it is so important to provide children with a strong foundation so they can develop the skills they will need to learn, understand, and make themselves understood. To that end, she is involved with ReadAloud.org, a family-run charity that provides books and teaching aids to vulnerable families in support of intergenerational reading. The organization builds the tools needed for a lifetime of learning; through these programs, family members learn how to share information — to understand the words and to make themselves understood. Dr. Kendle says there is no more important skill for a child, parents, and grandparents to learn. F Family: Husband, two children Hobbies: Rowing and sculling Giving Back: ReadAloud.org Bucket List: Build ReadAloud.org into the standard for reading assistance, and developing communication and comprehension skills throughout Appalachia, inner cities, and other underserved communities Inspiration: Nobel Laureate, Dr. Gertrude Elion Top iPod downloads: Eva Cassidy Screensaver: Her grandchildren Life Lessons: You are now in the teaching phase of your career — J.E. Pepper Under The Cloak of Invisibility: Visit the boardroom at Disney, a wonderful combination of fantasy and reality rolled into a single business entity Getting Personal with Candace Kendle With her commitment to employees, clients, and society, Deborah Wood has created a community-focused organization at DWA Healthcare Communications Group. A standout example of her commitment to her employees was the response mounted to secure the safety and return of faculty, clients, vendors, and teams who were stranded around the country and Europe on September 11. Ms. Wood and her colleagues worked diligently to solve each situation, uniting and pulling together as the tension mounted. One colleague wore her “I Love NY" T-shirt, inspiring action; in response the director of HR found a small broken computer fan and, in an impromptu awards ceremony, handed it to the young lady, saying “I am your fan." Nine years later, DWA continues to memorialize that day and that moment with an award. The little broken fan has now been painted gold and placed on a base. It is there for an employee to share with another for one of those inspirational moments. It is the “I am your fan" award. Ms. Wood fosters this same sense of community through events such as the company’s awards program presentations. Each year there is a theme and last year’s was DWA Channel 15, a news broadcast, and Ms. Wood was the topic of a few insider stories. She was taped “undercover" smuggling her dogs into the building, stealing food from the employee fridge, to name just a few moments. The awards program allows DWA to recognize peer-to-peer accomplishments, but is also an opportunity for Ms. Wood and her colleagues to laugh at themselves. A hands-on and caring CEO, Ms. Wood recognizes each of her more than 140 employees by name. She asks about their hobbies and their families. She celebrates birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, babies, holidays, pets, performance, and just plain happiness and health. Volunteerism and community involvement are important to Ms. Wood, who is passionate about education, the wellness of children, and fundraising to support the fight against debilitating and life-threatening diseases. The example she sets has led more than 75% of employees to donate their own time to charitable organizations and events, along with helping each other when injured or ill. Ms. Wood says her deepest concern is that the recently enacted healthcare reform legislation will continue to exert unknown pressures on an already overburdened, underperforming, and disruptive system. While providing healthcare insurance for most, if not all, Americans is the right thing to do, she believes the legislation is the wrong approach at the wrong time and that it will overburden the healthcare system to care for 30 million or more of the sickest people in the country. F Deborah Wood • A Sense of Community Family: Husband, Willie; Daughter, Miranda; Son, Chris Reading List: Sense of Urgency by John Kotter Hobbies: Family, reading, gardening, horseback riding, and swimming Giving Back: United Way, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, AmVets of Indiana, Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, Good Samaritan Network, Habitat for Humanity, Heroes Club, Indiana National Guard, Julian Center, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Prime Life Enrichment Center, Ronald McDonald House, Salvation Army, St. Mary’s Child Center, Second Helpings, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Children’s TherAplay Foundation, local arts organizations, and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum Bucket List: Observe the building of a skyscraper, have a vegetable garden, and spoil future grandchildren Top iPod downloads: Classical or piano, including George Winston, Jim Brickman, and Lauren Green; Beatles albums Screensaver: The Wood family in 2004, standing in a field that was the site of their home Most Unusual Place Visited: An exhibit called Art in a Bathtub, with a Scotsman in a tub reciting bad poetry during the Edinburgh Festival Life Lessons: The only way that a company can be the best that it can be is if every one of the employees are the best that they can be Under The Cloak of Invisibility: Being present at the moment the next Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals meeting in Conclave Getting Personal with Deborah Wood When Robert Paull decided to move from his profession of architecture to becoming a life-sciences entrepreneur, he took an unusual route: focusing on the needs of the poorest countries. As founding CEO of Harvard Medical School’s vaccine discovery company Genocea Biosciences, Mr. Paull partnered with the global nonprofit foundation PATH to develop a novel streptococcus pneumonia vaccine, a leading cause of death for children under the age of 5. Mr. Paull contends that breakthroughs in developing-world diseases have been made possible by the launch of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and similar organizations such as PATH, coupled with tens of billions of dollars committed from donors such as Warren Buffett. These efforts have not only created a massive pool of capital to fund important global health priorities but they have accelerated start-ups and big companies alike to address more than just quarterly earnings reports. Mr. Paull believes the combination of emerging market growth with novel partnerships and financing opportunities, made possible because of these nonprofit organizations will transform the biotech/pharma industry in the decade to come. Such enterprise excites Mr. Paull, but he is equally inspired by those who excel in other areas. He cites Arnold Schwarzenegger as a great inspiration for reaching the pinnacle in three diverse fields: sports, entertainment, and politics. F Robert Paull • Building Blocks Hobbies: Running, skiing, traveling Reading list: Autobiography of Ben Franklin; Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; Small Giants by Bo Burlingham; The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan Bucket List: Teach entrepreneurship in a developing country, live in New Zealand; and, though not anytime soon, wingsuit flying Inspiration: Arnold Schwarzenegger Top iPod downloads: Stanford University Technology Ventures program podcasts; Ted Talks; Live Pearl Jam, Stick Figure Screensaver: Soggy Dollar Bar, Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands Life Lessons: Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect — Mark Twain; Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle — Oscar Wilde Getting Personal with Robert Paull Since starting his innovative healthcare market research company Verilogue in 2006, Jeff Kozloff has built the organization into one that has served more than 30 companies and 85 brands interested in supporting doctor-patient communications. Mr. Kozloff has driven the development of Verilogue’s point-of-practice and technology system that digitally records real-time patient-physician conversations; shaped the company’s patent-pending approach to capturing critical information at the point of care, while maintaining patient and physician confidentiality; and recruited a team of seasoned linguists, statisticians, marketing, and communications experts to analyze and derive insights from these conversations. But it is this latter task, recruiting talent, that Mr. Kozloff rates as the most difficult, saying he never anticipated how hard it would be or how much time he would need to dedicate to recruiting. While he is now surrounded by a strong team, the search for awesome talent is top-of-mind every day and he never misses an opportunity to recruit quality people. Mr. Kozloff stays motivated and driven by every new insight that Verilogue’s data uncovers and by taking a new spin or technique to an old approach. Staying true to the ideals on which Verilogue was founded, he continues to lead and inspire his team with the motto: challenge tradition. For him the most exciting moment was when Verilogue’s technology system captured the company’s first in-office doctor-patient dialogue. When the company crossed 50,000 recordings just a few years later, he says, this too was very gratifying. Mr. Kozloff started out as an analyst with the strategy consulting firm, ISO Healthcare Group, which meant he was a well-paid scribe who attended some important big pharma life-cycle management meetings. His real job, however, was to lug a suitcase full of markers, paper, acetates, office supplies, and a printer with him on each overseas trip. He loved the expression on the customs officer’s face when they would make him open that bag. Outside of Verilogue, Mr. Kozloff is partnering with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Verilogue’s mission is to serve physicians, patients, and healthcare companies by enhancing disease understanding, communication and treatment dynamics among all parties working to win the fight against disease, and while his team’s day-to-day work plays an important role in healthcare communications, they are one of many sources needed to drive change. He says partnering with Make-A-Wish provides a terrific opportunity to make a direct impact on the well-being of a deserving child and his/her support network. As he says, he likes to dream big and he enjoys making others’ dreams come true. F Jeff Kozloff • Challenging Tradition Family: Wife, Katie; Daughters, Olivia and Ali; Dog, Daisy Mae Giving Back: Make-A-Wish Foundation Top iPod downloads: The Daily Show; Reggae, and Island Music Screensaver: Image of his children Most Unusual Place Visited: An outdoor hawkers center in Singapore at midnight Life Lessons: Live each day to its fullest —his father Getting Personal with Jeff Kozloff Every entrepreneur needs one great moment or piece of advice, and for Alfred Mann that came when the U.S. Army persuaded him to start Spectrolab, his first company. Mr. Mann hasn’t looked back since. He has founded numerous companies in multiple sectors, including aerospace, semiconductors, and the life sciences. Today, in addition to being chairman and CEO of MannKind Corp., he is also founder and chairman of Second Sight, a biomed company working on a retinal prosthesis; founder and chairman of Bioness, which is devoted to applying electrostimulation for functional neural defects, such as paralysis; founder and chairman of Quallion LLC, a producer of high reliability batteries for medical products and for the military and aerospace industries; and chairman of Stellar Microelectronics, an electronic circuit manufacturer for the medical, military, and aerospace industries. He also chairs the Southern California Biomedical Council and is a Life Trustee of the University of Southern California. But his main focus is on MannKind and specifically getting Afrezza, the first ultra rapid acting mealtime insulin for the treatment of diabetes, to market. His long-term goal is to help find solutions for the global diabetes epidemic, and address the poorly met needs in the management of this serious disease, which affects almost 27 million people in the United States alone. One of the biggest impediments to breakthroughs in therapeutic advances, he believes, is the great aversion to risk at all levels. Perhaps most troubling for Mr. Mann is the loss of personal responsibility he sees in the broader community. His commitment to his company’s goals and his unwavering support for all who work for him is reflected in the accolades MannKind has received. Under Mr. Mann’s guidance, the company won the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering’s prestigious 2010 Facility of the Year Award (FOYA) in two different categories — the process innovation and equipment innovation categories — an unprecedented feat. On top of this, MannKind recently won the prestigious 2010 North America Frost & Sullivan Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award. This award recognizes MannKind’s superior entrepreneurial ability in the areas of growth strategy and implementation; degree of innovation with products and technologies; leadership in customer value; and speed of response to market needs. F Al Mann • Mann-Sized Achievements Family: Wife, Claude, seven children, and 10 grandchildren Reading List: Medical journals, reports, PharmaVOICE Giving Back: The Alfred Mann Foundation and three institutes at The University of Southern California, Purdue and the Technion; also medicine, music, arts, and education Bucket List: To help find solutions for the global diabetes epidemic, and address the needs in the management of the disease Most Unusual Place Visited: Istanbul, Turkey Life Lessons: Figure out how much money would be required to start a business, double that, and don’t proceed unless having thrice that amount A little-known fact: Mr.Mann put himself through the first two years of college as a photographer Getting Personal with Alfred Mann When Brenda Snow was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis early in her career, she responded in a way few would. Rather than letting her diagnosis control her, she has embraced it and made it the inspiration for her life’s work. The result is the Snow Companies and the highly respected Patient Ambassador model. Never satisfied with the status quo, she is continually looking for ways to improve direct-to-patient communications, challenging clients to step outside of the box and embrace the power of the authentic patient story. An astute and standout individual, Ms. Snow possesses an ability to see through a situation and have a level of discernment and keen mental perception that goes beyond being in tune. It has enabled her to excel with clients, employees, and most importantly, the ambassadors, whose personal challenges of living with serious medical conditions foremost on her mind every day. Ms. Snow has assembled a remarkable team, all of whom work in collaboration to make a difference to the lives of others. By leading by example, her constant encouragement, support, and can-do attitude inspire others to work harder, work smarter, and do more. Her determination has been all the more important in today’s challenging legal and regulatory climate. Ms. Snow says her experience suggests there are many inconsistencies and interpretations of the rules and regulations that differ not only from company to company but often brand to brand at the same company. An important part of what Snow Companies does is respect the authentic patient voice of the ambassadors as this clearly impacts the marketplace, but Ms. Snow says the environment is becoming more difficult to navigate as companies have become increasingly conservative in their interpretation of the regulations. Ms. Snow is continually looking for the next opportunity to create innovative solutions. She loves building businesses and teams and will continue to grow Snow Companies’ offerings and perhaps consider a new business venture. A multifaceted individual, Ms. Snow cannot be easily categorized. She is entrepreneurial, having founded Snow Companies on an innovative idea and then developed it with a smart business plan. She is a dynamic thinker, able to flourish and continue to learn in the complicated and demanding pharmaceutical industry by staying ahead of the changes. She is a patient advocate; as an MS patient she understands intimately the challenges confronting those who face chronic illness. And she has drawn on this understanding and her own determination to establish human connections that touch the lives of patients worldwide. She is a professional role model, always striving to do the right thing, to be honest in all of her dealings. She is a personal role model, living her life to the fullest and relishing happiness in others. And she is a down-to-earth, fallible human being who is not afraid to laugh and cry with others, to admit a mistake and say she is sorry, and to acknowledge when she doesn’t have the answer. A mentor to many, Ms. Snow finds mentorship from her business partner, Chief Operating Officer Corbin Wood. Mr. Wood was her first client and their relationship has been mutually beneficial and grown into a friendship. In 2006, as the company continued to expand, Ms. Snow asked Mr. Wood to join her, and since then the company has continued to grow exponentially.F Fa ily: Daughter, Stephanie, 22 Reading List: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga; Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts; The M-Factor by Lynne Lancaster and David Stillman Giving Back: National Multiple Sclerosis Society; Epilepsy Foundation; Can Do Multiple Sclerosis; Arthritis Foundation Hobbies: Photography, oil painting, mosaics, wine, reading, traveling, archaeology Bucket List: Visit Egypt’s pyramids, safari in Botswana, write a book, become fluent in French, attend a cooking school in Tuscany Inspiration: Her daughter; patient ambassadors Top iPod downloads: John Legend, Melody Gardot, Michael Bublé, John Mayer Screensaver: Christmas in Zermatt, Switzerland, with her daughter Most Unusual Place Visited: A Bedouin tent in the Middle East, filled with food, wine, and hookah Life Lessons: The most expensive thing you own is your temper Under the cloak of invisibility: Attend a restricted archaeological dig, preferably a discovery relating to Cleopatra Brenda Snow • A Model for Patients With nothing more than an idea, two instruments, and a computer, Janet Wolfe, Ph.D., has built Wolfe Laboratories into a successful CRO. Hers is a success story built on determination and keen business acumen. Dr. Wolfe enjoys exploring new ideas and disciplines and then fusing them to create something that is completely novel. As the new creation garners momentum and it becomes clear that it is worthy of further pursuit, she is focused in her determination to fully realize its potential and desired outcome. While getting Wolfe Laboratories to its current position has required hard work and determination, Dr. Wolfe is not about to rest on her laurels. She is in the process of raising capital to expand and provide additional capacity for early-stage drug development services. To serve Wolfe Laboratories’ growing client base, Dr. Wolfe has expanded the company’s integrated IND-enabling services to offer manufacturing capabilities. Through an extremely competitive process, Wolfe Laboratories was awarded seed funds from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to construct the first stage of an aseptic fill/finish manufacturing facility for preclinical development and clinical trials. Wolfe Laboratories was the top applicant of the 88 firms that applied; only seven awards to early-stage companies were granted. The introduction of manufacturing capabilities will allow clients’ products to be manufactured within Wolfe Laboratories’ and made available for human delivery in clinical trials. There are no small-scale manufacturing facilities in Massachusetts that cater to the needs of emerging biopharma and Wolfe Laboratories is the first company in this space. The company also expanded its quality program to support FDA requirements for laboratories working with compounds to be used in safety testing. Aligning services with FDA requirements adds tremendous growth potential since research not conducted under FDA protocol might be inadmissible when a company attempts to bring a new drug to the market. With quality FDA procedures and manufacturing capabilities in place, Wolfe Laboratories offers the clinical capacity that many small biopharmaceutical companies do not have. F Dr. Janet Wolfe • A Song and a Lab Family: Husband, Mike; three children, Daniel, Julia, and Christian Hobbies: Hiking Giving Back: Director, Institute for Pediatric Innovation; Co-chair, Math Science and Technology Initiative with the Massachusetts United Way reading list: The Innovator’s Prescription by Clayton Christensen; Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather Screensaver: Family pictures Getting Personal with Dr. Janet Wolfe In the course of his career, Warren Levy, Ph.D., has challenged conventional thinking in his pursuit of better ways to treat disease. One of the biggest challenges, he says is dealing with doctors who are unwilling to accept new, yet convincing data, and big pharma companies that make poor decisions. It is vital, he believes, that the industry begins to do a better job of getting the latest available information about the choices available to patients. For Dr. Levy, the big breakthrough in the industry came with the cloning of interferon, opening the door to the potential of biotechnology. Dr. Levy has been a key contributor to this understanding. He participated in the first successful cloning of the human leukocyte interferon genes in the United States at the Roche Institute, which was subsequently reported by Roche and Genentech. And he determined the complete amino acid sequence of three species of human leukocyte interferon, using manual and automated protein sequencing techniques, in a collaborative effort with Dr. Jack Shively at the City of Hope. This was the first report of the complete amino acid sequence of any pure species of interferon. The techniques used include HPLC purification of proteins and peptides, tryptic mapping, amino acid analysis, and sequencing. Dr. Levy’s level of commitment and drive have led his company, Unigene, to become one of the smallest biotechnology firms to take a drug all the way from the research stage through FDA approval with its nasal calcitonin Fortical for osteoporosis. F Getting Personal with Dr. warren Levy Family: Wife, Robin; Daughter, Nicole; Son, Jeremy Reading List: Historical nonfiction Hobbies: Family and sports Bucket List: Travel and spend time with family Top iPod downloads: 1960s music Screensaver: Trip to Hawaii for his 35th anniversary Most Unusual Place Visited: China Life Lessons: Live by your handshake; anything worth doing is worth doing well Dr. Warren Levy • Delivering Choice In 1999, while working as a senior manager of regulatory affairs at Schering-Plough, Jim Walker decided the time was ripe to act on his dream of providing critically needed solutions to the evolving challenges facing regulatory organizations. He had recognized as early as 1997 that the FDA’s acceptance of CRFs/CRTs on disc was changing the way information could be sent to regulatory authorities. He founded Octagon Research Solutions, a full-service global development partnering organization, on addressing regulatory principles. Mr. Walker has been quick to adapt innovative solutions for an industry that has experienced intense public scrutiny, increasingly demanding standards, and evolving government regulations. His high standards are evident in his zero-defect mentality, which is pervasive throughout Octagon’s lines of business, strategic partnerships, and products. Above all, Mr. Walker is a principled and caring leader. Several years ago, he formed a charity committee at Octagon and since its inception he has worked along with Octagon employees with many charities, including the Special Olympics, Northern Home for Children, and The American Cancer Society. Also, each month, Octagon employees volunteer to take time out of their workday to make sandwiches that are distributed to the homeless of Philadelphia. Mr. Walker is always in attendance during the sandwich making and through the years has earned the honor of “turkey sandwich making specialist." Outside of the industry, Mr. Walker says his deepest concern is the lack of any significant plan to address the homelessness problem in the United States. F James Walker • Zero Defects Hobbies: Golf, biking, ice hockey Giving back: Special Olympics, Northern Home for Children, and The American Cancer Society Life Lessons: No matter what you do, always be persistent Getting Personal with James Walker Few leaders, or entrepreneurs for that matter, could boast such an eclectic curriculum vitae as Rob Likoff. Indeed, few are as colorful, right down to the socks he wears and the huge wardrobe full of shoes — 400 pairs and counting. Mr. Likoff gained experience and considerable success in virtually all areas of the industry — from research and development to product development and marketing — on his way to becoming an equally successful and well-respected entrepreneur. Today, Group DCA, the company he founded in 2000, has expanded and now thrives as one of the market leaders in innovative e-communications to healthcare professionals. Mr. Likoff led the company to nearly four-fold growth in the past four years alone. The company has worked with close to 200,000 physicians and hundreds of clients and brands, amassing numerous prestigious awards along the way, just a few of which include Most Innovative, Best Use of Digital Technology for Healthcare Providers, and Best Use of Digital Technology for Patients. His educational credentials are almost as impressive as his professional ones: he holds a veterinary degree and two master’s degrees. On top of all that, he was the first person at Merck to win the American Society for Microbiology’s Theobold Smith Award. He then won the award a second year in a row. F Rob Likoff • Best Foot Forward Family: Wife, Sheri Rosenblatt Reading List: 61 Hours by Lee Child; Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay; Daring Young Men by Richard Reeves Hobbies: Wine collecting, shoe collecting, tennis Giving Back: Supports his local library Bucket List: Help other entrepreneurs start their businesses, travel the back roads in an RV Inspiration: His wife Screensaver: His wife and niece Most Unusual Place Visited: New Jersey Life Lessons: When starting a business, it may look like the Grand Canyon, but once you get started it will look like a crack in the pavement — Alexander Strunc, mentor Under The Cloak of Invisibility: He’d love to nap Getting Personal with Rob Likoff Few people understand the urgent need for the industry to adapt to the new global paradigm and make significant changes better than Paulash Mohsen. In a series of positions at Pfizer he has been instrumental in effecting changes that respond to today’s challenges. For example, he helped the company look at ways to reconfigure its field force to adapt to the evolving pharmaceutical sales environment, incorporating strategies to manage changes in physician, managed care, and regulatory conditions; he helped to develop new selling and resourcing models; and he helped to define the need for innovation around the U.S. commercial model, based on the future portfolio, selling environment, and current gaps. Before his current appointment, he oversaw Pfizer’s primary-care strategy unit to help the company transition from the era of blockbusters to an era of more nimble and focused commercialization strategies. Now he’s turning his insights to multi-channel management, where he is tasked with a 21st century challenge of figuring out how to effectively and efficiently reach providers in a world where they are increasingly challenged by time and cost pressures. Right now, he says the primary method of communication with physicians is via live, face-to-face conversations. What’d he like to see is for this to be supplemented with interactions over the Internet, mobile phones, and other channels, and achieve the seamless integration across channels that consumers expect of the companies they deal with day to day. Mr. Mohsen says the challenge the industry faces, at its core, is whether it is able to change. The challenges ahead are significant. R&D productivity is a pervasive challenge. The healthcare affordability crisis — manifested by payer cost management, product commoditization, and changing provider economics — puts unprecedented pressure on the commercialization model. Increasingly informed and engaged consumers, as well as meaningful regional variations in the way healthcare is practiced, only heighten this pressure. The successful pharma companies will be the ones that can navigate this dynamic environment and change their practices to adapt successfully, he says. As someone who is focused on change and innovation, he recognizes many defining moments in the industry, among them being 2005, which marked the peak number of field-based reps for the industry, and 2006, which saw the introduction of Medicare and a dramatic change in the federal government’s position as a payer for pharmaceuticals. For Mr. Mohsen, to make things happen it’s necessary to have a broad perspective. It’s an insight he gathered from a visiting CEO while he was at business school, who told him that early in his career he should get broad exposure rather than focus on functional expertise. It’s what initially spurred him to go into consulting. Roles with broad exposure have helped him understand the context in which the business operates, helping him to make things happen on a daily basis. F Name: Paulash Mohsen Current position: VP, Multi-Channel Management, Pfizer Education: MBA, Harvard Business School, 2001; M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996; B.S., Brown University, 1995 Date and Place of Birth: December 1973, Canada First Job: Door-to-door canvasser First Industry-related Job: Manufacturing associate Dream Job: Any pursuit where changes in technology drives changes in behavior Connected Via: LinkedIn and Facebook Words to Live By: Do the right thing Curious. Analytical. Paulash Mohsen participated in the annual Empire State Building Run-Up, in which runners race up a total of 1,576 steps to the Observatory deck on the 86th floor. Paulash Mohsen, VP of Multi-Channel Management, is not only one of the youngest stars at Pfizer, but he is also one of the company’s brightest.
to have a broad perspective. It’s an insight he gathered from a visiting CEO while he was at business school, who told him that early in his career he should get broad exposure rather than focus on functional expertise. It’s what initially spurred him to go into consulting. Roles with broad exposure have helped him understand the context in which the business operates, helping him to make things happen on a daily basis. F Name: Paulash Mohsen Current position: VP, Multi-Channel Management, Pfizer Education: MBA, Harvard Business School, 2001; M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996; B.S., Brown University, 1995 Date and Place of Birth: December 1973, Canada First Job: Door-to-door canvasser First Industry-related Job: Manufacturing associate Dream Job: Any pursuit where changes in technology drives changes in behavior Connected Via: LinkedIn and Facebook Words to Live By: Do the right thing Curious. Analytical. Paulash Mohsen participated in the annual Empire State Building Run-Up, in which runners race up a total of 1,576 steps to the Observatory deck on the 86th floor. Paulash Mohsen, VP of Multi-Channel Management, is not only one of the youngest stars at Pfizer, but he is also one of the company’s brightest.
An article from
The ENTREPRENEURS
Filed Under:
Research & Development