South Florida's bioscience leaders; Building a regional bioscience and biotechnology business cluster takes a cooperative effort between private business, non-profit research and higher education. Here are some of the key players shaping this fast-evolving sector: researchers, chief executives and academic leaders

South Florida CEO, Sept, 2005 by Richard Westlund

THE GODFATHER

PHILLIP FROST

CHAIRMAN AND CEO/IVAX CORP.

Dozens of local pharmaceutical companies can trace their roots back to entrepreneur Phillip Frost. His businesses, including Key Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Ivax Corp., spawned other area biomedical entrepreneurs such as Michael Jaharis and Daniel Bell, founders of Kos Pharmaceuticals Inc., Andrx Corp. co-founder Elliot F. Hahn and even a publicly traded spinoff: Ivax Diagnostics Inc.

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In July, Frost announced he would sell the $1.8 billion Ivax to Tel Aviv, Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Although Frost will become vice chairman of Teva, he has not yet said how active a role he will play in the new company. The eyes of South Florida's bioscience industry are watching for his next move.

The combined companies will have $7 billion in revenue, and 25,000 employees. In the transaction, Frost's shares of IVAX will be worth more than $1 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing the transaction, which is expected to close in late 2005 or early 2006.

"We have had longstanding business and personal relationships at TEVA," Frost said in announcing the sale. "We look forward with eagerness to the development of the new TEVA as a world-renowned leader in providing cost-effective medicines and innovative drugs."

For South Florida, Ivax's sale means the loss of the area's largest bioscience company. Thomas H. McLain, CEO of Boca Raton-based Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, says Ivax's presence helped build awareness of the industry. "I'm not sure what the sale will mean going forward, but the loss of IVAX may weaken the community," he says.

Frost's career began at the University of Miami School of Medicine, where he was an assistant medical professor. He became chair of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach in 1972. That same year, he launched Key Pharmaceuticals, which developed medications that were delivered through the skin. Schering-Plough Corp. purchased Key for $600 million 14 years later.

Soon afterward Frost plowed his portion of the proceeds--about $100 million--into IVAX, and built the company into one of the world's major manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals.

Although he is not talking, Frost is expected to remain active in the pharmaceutical industry as well as in civic organizations. A trustee of the University of Miami and the Scripps Research Institute, he has endowed the UM Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music and the Phillip and Patricia Frost Art Museum at Florida International University.

"There are people salivating at the $1 billion and wondering what Dr. Frost will do," says Richard T. Schoephoerster, FIU's chair of biomedical engineering. "Some are hoping the funds will go toward philanthropy; others hope he'll start the next big thing. The sale is bound to seed new activity in South Florida."

THE PRACTITIONER

JOHN G. CLARKSON

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR MEDICAL AFFAIRS AND DEAN/UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LEONARD M. MILLER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

With 14 major products in the pipeline, the University of Miami's Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine is facilitating the transfer of basic medical research to clinical care.

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"It's at the academic medical centers where the front line of clinical research can be applied to patient care," says John G. Clarkson, who has seen a 50 percent increase in research awards from the National Institutes of Health--from $60 million to almost $90 million--during his 10 years as dean of the school. "Patient care is always under evolution based on what you learn in your research."

Known for its research into fields as diverse as diabetes, neuroscience, cancer and psychiatry, the medical school is licensing technologies with commercial potential to pharmaceutical and medical device companies worldwide. In South Florida, the school has longstanding research agreements with Beckman-Coulter Inc., and has licensed technology to start-up companies like Bio-Nucleonics Inc., which provides radiological treatment for cervical cancers.

Prior to becoming dean in 1995, Clarkson was the medical school's chairman of ophthalmology, director of its Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, and medical director of the Anne Bates Leach Eye Hospital. A faculty member since 1975, he has been a principal investigator in ophthalmic disease subjects.

As dean, Clarkson has led the creation of the Schoninger Research Quadrangle, with 800,000 square feet of space dedicated to basic or clinical research at the UM/Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami. Under Clarkson, the medical school has also looked to the north, opening a campus at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and looking at potential academic collaborations with Scripps Research Institute.

THE ENABLER

LARRY F. LEMANSKI

VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH AND GRADUATE STUDIES/FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Two years ago, Gov. Jeb Bush's economic development team invited Larry F. Lemanski to give a presentation on Florida Atlantic University's biomedical initiatives to a group of low-profile visitors from Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., "They were surprised to learn about FAU's new medical program and biomedical center of excellence," Lemanski says. "All these things helped them realize that Palm Beach County would offer an interesting academic environment for them."