FREDERICK FRANK

FRANK--Frederick, CFA. Frederick Frank, CFA, Pioneer of Life Sciences Investment Banking. Frederick Frank, MBA, CFA, an investment banker and research analyst with more than 60 years' experience on Wall Street, and one of the top contributors to the field of biotechnology, died on September 11, 2021. He was 89. He graduated from Yale University in 1954 with a degree in philosophy. After serving in the US Army, he earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1958. After earning his MBA, he joined the research department at Smith, Barney and Company, working on pharmaceutical and chemical companies. Soon after, he proposed splitting the two sectors and became the first analyst on Wall Street focusing on pharmaceutical companies. He later shifted his focus more broadly to life science companies, covering medical devices, diagnostics, and healthcare services. Among other positions, he served as a co-leader of research at Smith, Barney. In 1969, he left Smith, Barney to become a partner at Lehman Brothers, first in charge of research and later moving to investment banking. At Lehman, he rose to the position of Vice Chair in 1995, while working on many of the most significant and creative transactions in the history of healthcare, including the 1981 initial public offering of Cetus Corporation, which was the second-largest IPO in US history at the time. He played a key role in the 1989 merger of Bristol-Myers and Squibb, and in the 1990 acquisition of Genentech by Hoffmann-La Roche, which he later described in an East Bay Times article as "the quintessential example of the implementation of a strategy of convergence, which created extraordinary value for both companies and their shareholders." Frank served at Lehman, and later Barclays until he joined Peter J. Solomon to form a new practice focused on pharmaceuticals and life sciences in 2009. In 2014, he founded EVOLUTION Life Science Partners, where he served as Chairman until his passing. With his wife, Mary, he co- founded the Tanner Frank Foundation in 1996 and served on the Board of Advisors of the Yale University School of Management from its founding in 1976, where he established two professorships in management and finance and funded scholarships for students. He served on the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Harvard School of Public Health and the Advisory Board of the Salk Institute where he funded programs for graduate students. He was a member of The Board of Trustees of the Hotchkiss School for a decade, of which he was a graduate, and as Chairman of the Board for two years. He served on many corporate Boards of Directors over his long career, and was an investor in many early stage companies. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Albert Einstein Award from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2004, the 2006 Gilda's Club of New York City Visionary Award, the 2019 Richard J. Bolte Sr. Award for Supporting Industries from the Science History Institute and in 2021, the Biotechnology Heritage Award from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and the Science History Institute. He also received the biotech Hall of Fame Award at the Annual Biotech meeting in 1997 and was named among Reed Elsevier's "Top 100 Living Contributors to Biotechnology." Known for his vision and forward thinking, Frank's long career of 60 years on Wall Street has been encompassed in a biography of his life by the celebrated science author David Ewing Duncan entitled "A Philosopher on Wall Street: How Creative Financier Fred Frank Forged The Future." All proceeds from this book will go to Frank's charities. Frank was a legendary deal maker. In the early years of his career, he focused on emerging growth industries such as business services, electronics, photography and healthcare services, but in the latter years, almost exclusively on biotechnology and life sciences, as he thought that biology and chemistry were inexhaustible sources of the new, as he termed it, "fountain of youth." Frank had numerous interests and hobbies: he had the love of travel (particularly France), the love of reading, collected art and antiques, and was an avid sportsman and dog lover. He was proud to have completed the Paris Marathon in 1992 to mark his 60th birthday. In the dedication of this book, Dr Leroy Hood, MD, PhD, founder of The Institute for Systems Biology and numerous companies, said: "I think Fred Frank was the seminal deal maker in biotech. He has this amazing way of taking a very complicated problem and finding a very simple, straight forward solution." Frank is survived by his wife and life-long business partner, Mary Catherine Tanner and their son, Frederick Seller Frank and his daughters, from his previous marriage, Jenny Frank Goldsmith and Laura Frank and his two grandchildren, Gregory Goldsmith and Emma Goldsmith.