阿莱加德罗·扎法罗尼（Alejandro Zaffaroni），硅谷连续创业者，他在该行业的不同领域内成功创办了七家生物科技公司。
Born a banker's son in Montevideo, Uruguay, Alejandro Zaffaroni studied medicine in his home country and then earned a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Rochester, New York.
In 1951, he went to work for Syntex, which was then a small firm headquartered in Mexico City that was pioneering the production of synthetic steroid hormones. While he was at Syntex, his work with Dr. Carl Djerassi became the basis of the Pill, the oral contraceptive.
As a supervisor of both research and marketing, Zaffaroni helped transform the small firm into a large pharmaceutical house with research facilities in Palo Alto.
简介编辑本段回目录
Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni (born 1923) is a serial entrepreneur who is responsible for founding several successful biotechnology companies in Silicon Valley.
Born in 1923 in Montevideo, Uruguay, Dr. Zaffaroni received his B.Sc. from the University of Montevideo in 1945, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Rochester in 1949.
He joined Syntex, then a small chemical company in Mexico, as a biochemist in 1951. He participated in turning Syntex into a major multinational pharmaceutical company, moving it to Palo Alto, California. He was appointed president of the U.S. subsidiary in 1962.
In 1968, he founded Alza, a portmanteau of his name, to develop medical treatments through controlled drug delivery. He modeled new delivery systems after the processes discovered in endocrinology – where glands deliver very small amounts of hormones but have a tremendous effect –.
Alza's first controlled drug delivery product was used to treat glaucoma. Other products that incorporated Zaffaroni's drug delivery technologies include Glucotrol, for non-insulin-dependent diabetes; Duragesic, for management of severe chronic pain; NicoDerm CQ, for smoking cessation; and Transderm-Scop, to prevent nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness.
In 1980, Zaffaroni established DNAX, a developer of macromolecular products that combines the technologies of genetic engineering and immunobiology.
In 1988 he co-founded Affymax, specializing in combinatorial chemistry to reduce the cost and time of identifying new medicines.
In 1991 he founded Affymetrix, specializing in using genetics for developing new medicine. He was also involved in the creation of Perlegen Sciences, an Affymetrix spin-off which works on finding genetic causes of disease.
In 1994, he founded Symyx Technologies, a company dedicated to utilizing combinatorial chemistry technologies.
Other companies he founded include Maxygen (1997), a developer of technologies that improve the development of proteins and genetic elements, and SurroMed, focusing on the development of technologies for surrogate disease markers. In 2000, he founded Alexza Pharmaceuticals, a company working on rapid onset of action drug delivery technologies.
In 1995, Dr. Zaffaroni received the National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton for his contributions to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. In 2005 he received the Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute for his creation of new biochemical processes and drug delivery technologies. Also in 2005 he was awarded the Gregory Pincus Award from the Worcester Foundation.
访谈编辑本段回目录
Singh: What one word do you think best describes the mind of an innovator, and why?
Zaffaroni: I think it is the whole issue of discovery. You look at the particular situation, a particular product, a particular event. In a very exciting process, you begin to think that there are better ways to do it. The whole aspect of discovery is thinking about bringing new concepts, new products to significantly improve something that already exists. In my case - the case of medications - it was the impact of seeing negative events in the use of medications.
Wolfson: Your innovation was to take a means of delivering medicine - a pill - that has been around since the time of the Egyptians, and making something new of it. That kind of innovation is not always met with open arms by the establishment, especially the often conservative medical establishment. Could you speak to that, and what you had to deal with ?
Zaffaroni: First of all, where did I get the idea from? I got my Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Rochester, New York, where I studied endocrinology, which is the working in the human body of these small glands that have a tremendously important function. They deliver very small amounts of materials that have tremendous impact in various functions: The ovarian hormone, that is required for the female physiology and, of course, the whole aspect of gestation. Testosterone, cortisone, the renal hormones, all these agents function in very, very minute amounts, highly controlled by the gland, and these are essential for the entire function and health of an individual.
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It seemed to me quite evident that the way in which we administer the agents to the body are wrong, and if it is wrong for the hormones, why is it not also wrong for every compound that we throw all at once into the body?
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Now, how is it possible that these very potent agents are released under highly controlled conditions, and then we bring the same agents into the body by giving a tablet at a time, or an injection at a time. It seemed to me quite evident that the way in which we administer the agents to the body are wrong, and if it is wrong for the hormones, why is it not also wrong for every compound that we throw all at once into the body?
Wolfson: Were other people thinking along the same lines?
Zaffaroni: People were saying they had no idea what I was talking about. Was this rapidly accepted by the pharmaceutical industry? That is an interesting question, because it was not. I thought the industry would look at what we were doing and say, 'Gee, it makes a good deal of sense. But they didn't.'
Wolfson: When you were met with a negative reaction to this idea, how come you didn't just give up and say 'Well, this will never be accepted.' I think a lot of young people meet problems and give up. What stopped you from giving up?
Zaffaroni: Well, first of all, the reason is that many people said 'Well, that is an interesting idea, but I don't know how it is possible to be done.' I began with the first product, which was a very thin polymeric film that could be put on the eye for glaucoma. The usual medications have to be put in several times a day, and every time you put a drop in the eye, it blurs vision and you do not see the world for an hour. So this film that we put into the eye stays there for a week, and releases the medication very, very smoothly, just at the rate necessary to maintain the control, without the side effects.
So, I think, it's OK! I found one. What now?
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Was there a way that we could deliver the contraceptive into the body that would last for a year? People said 'Impossible.' Well, we did it.
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The next one was a contraceptive. My prior activities at Syntex was with the development of the oral contraceptive, but you have to take a pill a day. One of the problems is that many people forget to take a pill, and so you get a pregnancy. Was there a way that we could deliver the contraceptive into the body that would last for a year? People said 'Impossible.' Well, we did it.
So people said 'Well, OK, you have a second product. What are you going to do for a third?'
For a third, we introduced the concept of transdermal, which is to put a delivery system in the form of an adhesive that will release the medication and will maintain that level of medication over time.
What this means is that when you start out with a concept, many people give up to begin with. They say, yes, very interesting concept, but what are you going to do? You have to think very hard how to create entry points that allow you to build from there. That means you have to have an incredible amount of commitment to the concept.
What is interesting now, 20 years after I started, is that there are maybe 50 to 100 companies working in the field of drug delivery and the pharmaceutical industry now has, I don't know, $10 to $15 billion sales of products based on this technology.
新兴生物科技企业的知识耦合编辑本段回目录
沃顿管理学教授许大卫（David Hsu，音译）与新加坡国立大学林光辉（Kwanghui Lim）教授的最新研究成果表明，知识耦合可以帮助各个公司更快地实现产品销售和盈利。他们在新论文《新兴生物科技企业的知识耦合》（Knowledge Bridging by Biotechnology Startups）中表示，“所有想成为知识耦合型组织的公司所要做的是将合适的人才招至麾下，并给予他们充分发挥创造力的自由。”
许教授和林教授写道：“我们研究了连续创业者阿莱加德罗·扎法罗尼（Alejandro Zaffaroni）的案例，他在该行业的不同领域内成功创办了七家生物科技公司。扎法罗尼从前的一位同事如此评价他：‘对于人类创造力领域内的任何新技术，他都无所畏惧。他跟许多不同领域的人打交道时都能左右逢源。因此他能洞察看似迥异的领域之间的关联。’”
扎法罗尼式的跳跃并不囿于商界。学术界的创新也同样喜欢把看似风马牛不相及的学科联系起来。新兴的演化经济学便是一例。作者写道：“从演化生物学中借鉴关键思想——比如遗传变异和遗传选择规律——演化经济学家们使我们进一步认识到组织是如何像自然界的生物一样演进。”
相关链接编辑本段回目录
参考文献编辑本段回目录
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Zaffaroni
http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/revolution/zaffaroni/
