The Philadelphia region is one of the world’s biggest centers for research and production in the life sciences, and much of the credit for that goes to the late Frank Baldino, founder of suburban pharmaceutical giant Cephalon.
“He was an icon in the Philadelphia area,” says Philip Gerbino, president of the University of the Sciences. So Gerbino was honored to receive the CEO of the Year award recently from industry group Pennsylvania Bio. This year the award was renamed in honor of Baldino, who died in December of complications from leukemia.
Gerbino remembers Baldino as a no-nonsense man with a clear perspective of the impact that the life sciences could have in the Philadelphia area. Institutions like BioAdvance and the University City Science Center research park a little more than a mile from the school Gerbino leads illustrate how much vision Baldino had, Gerbino says.
That’s why he says he accepted the Pennsylvania Bio award not on his behalf, but on behalf of all leaders of life-science institutions. “It really was for all the CEOs out there who, like Frank, have a vision of what our industry could be,” he says.
The part USciences plays is to train future leaders in the sector and create an environment for medical research, especially into the process of giving drugs to patients. He also highlights the university’s ongoing partnership with The Wistar Institute, a Philadelphia biomedical research center.
Source: Philip Gerbino, University of the Sciences
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen