PASSING THE BATON PASSING THE BATON

NAMING ENDOWMENT

PROPELS SCHOOL’S TRAJECTORY ON THE FAST TRACK OF INNOVATION AND GROWTH, BUILDS UPON LONGSTANDING STRUCTURE OF COMMITMENT TO IMPROVING HUMAN HEALTH.

A physicist by training—and a biotechnology innovator and entrepreneur by inclination—the late Alfred E. Mann founded 17 companies.

These endeavors not only redefined biotechnology and our understanding of the human body, but also reached to the stars through his early work advancing the aerospace industry. Mann then turned his attention back to earth, becoming relentlessly committed to developing the rechargeable pacemaker and other medical devices that would dramatically enhance people’s lives—and that went far beyond what others before him had attempted.

In announcing an endowment to establish the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, USC President Carol L. Folt noted the appropriateness of connecting the school with the renowned inventor. “Our pharmacy school … has innovation built into its own DNA,” she said.

The school that now bears Mann’s name—and that has long shared his commitment to improving human health—has received a $50 million endowment from Alfred E. Mann Charities and the Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering

Alfred E. Mann: A Life of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy

1925

Born to immigrant parents in Portland, Oregon

1942

Graduates from high school at age 16 as co-valedictorian

1949

After military service during World War II, enrolls at UCLA, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics

1956

Starts Spectrolab, a manufacturer of space solar cells and panels (now a subsidiary of Boeing Satellite Systems)

1960

Launches Heliotek, a semiconductor company making solar cells to power spacecraft that will support student scholarships, transformative faculty recruitments and interdisciplinary research initiatives. The new name was announced in November 2022 and celebrated in February at a gathering of more than 300 students, faculty, alumni and friends of the school (see story, page 18). It is the largest naming endowment for a school of pharmacy in California.

“The lasting support provided by the Mann endowment will give us the flexibility and wherewithal to pursue bold ideas quickly, address new opportunities and challenges as they arise, recruit and retain top interdisciplinary faculty, and increase the aid we are able to offer to attract the best and brightest students from across the country and around the world,” says Vassilios Papadopoulos, dean of the newly named USC Mann School.

Recognizing the university’s commitment to a healthier and more just world, Mann became a longtime friend and partner of USC, beginning with a landmark gift in 1998 to establish the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering (AMI). Folt was instrumental in restructuring the Alfred E. Mann Charities’ original gift to ensure the USC Mann School’s rise as a leading research and educational institution.

Mann, who died in 2016, was a member of the university’s Board of Trustees and also served on the Board of Overseers of Keck School of Medicine of USC.

The gift “will enhance USC’s academic research community and our ability to educate the next generation of providers and researchers, drive scientific innovation and create commercial, successful medical products that improve public health,” Folt says.

The endowment will allow the Mann School to extend its commitment to health equity, wellness and best possible patient outcomes, adds Steven D. Shapiro, senior vice president for health affairs at USC. “We look forward to new opportunities for innovative discoveries as we train the next generation of healthcare leaders, expand interdisciplinary collaborations within the university and improve the health of our local Los Angeles community.”

Announced simultaneously was the naming of the Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Frances Richmond, who founded the Mann School’s regulatory science program, and her spouse, Gerald Loeb, a continued on page 17

Visionary Entrepreneur

Alfred E. Mann’s legacy includes rechargeable pacemakers, insulin pumps, cochlear implants, artificial retinas, mind-controlled prosthetic limbs, inhalable insulin, and microstimulators that alleviate pain and restore lost limb function.

Following are just a few of the businesses he built:

›› Spectrolab, the first of his aerospace companies

›› Heliotek, a semiconductor company that produced solar cells for spacecraft

›› Pacesetter Systems, which introduced the first implantable pacemaker that could be recharged without surgical removal

›› Bioness, devoted to helping people with neural defects—and even paralysis— regain mobility

›› MiniMed, the leader in lightweight, wearable insulin pumps that enable those with diabetes to more precisely control their blood sugar levels

›› The aptly named MannKind, which took the technology of glucose control even further with insulin that could be inhaled instead of injected

›› Second Sight Medical Products—now called Vivani Medical—which markets the artificial retina Argus II to help restore vision in people blinded by advanced retinitis pigmentosa

1972

Founds Pacesetter Systems, marketer of the first implantable pacemaker able to be recharged without removal and the first implantable insulin pump

1981

Earns the NASA Group Achievement Award, followed by the space agency’s Exceptional Public Service Award in 1984

1985

Establishes the philanthropic Alfred Mann Foundation

1991

Launches MannKind Corporation, developer of inhalable, fastacting insulin

1993 Forms MiniMed, maker of wearable insulin and programmable insulin pumps

1998

Endows the Alfred E. Mann Institute of Bioengineering at USC

Co-founds Second Sight Medical Products (now Vivani Medical), marketer of the artificial retina Argus II, which helps restore vision in people blinded by retinitis pigmentosa

Joins USC Board of Trustees 2002 Begins service as research professor of biomedical engineering at USC

THE MANN LEGACY: A PERSONAL VIEW

For trailblazing USC faculty members—and spouses—Frances Richmond and Gerald Loeb, the naming gifts honoring Alfred E. Mann felt like coming home. “It seemed almost like family,” Richmond says. “We felt like we were returning to our roots.” Richmond, who originally joined USC as director of regulatory and clinical sciences at the Alfred E. Mann Institute, now directs the D. K. Kim International Center for Regulatory Science at the Mann School, where she also founded the Department of Regulatory and Quality Sciences. Loeb is a professor of biomedical engineering and neurology in the newly renamed Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering at the USC Viterbi School.

Their relationship with the late entrepreneurial inventor and philanthropist dates back to 1994, when Loeb became chief scientist of Advanced Bionic Corporation, founded by Mann the prior year. During his time at Advanced Bionic, Loeb helped perfect a revolutionary device that he began developing nearly two decades earlier: the cochlear implant, which can restore hearing to deaf people.

“My first contact with Al was when he decided to take on the cochlear implant project that I had worked on in the late ’70s,” Loeb recalls. “At the time, nobody knew if cochlear implants were a viable product.” But Mann “mostly as a measure of philanthropy,” Loeb notes, devoted nearly $20 million to making them work.

“That was an indication of Al’s determination,” Loeb adds. “If he decided to do something, he didn’t quit until it was done.”

2003 Named Business Person of the Year by Los Angeles Business Journal

2004 Begins Bioness, a corporate leader in helping people with neural defects—and even paralysis— regain mobility

Gerald Loeb and Frances Richmond at an Advanced Bionic holiday party in the mid-1990s

At the time, Richmond served as a clinical scientist at Advanced Bionic, where she also aided in such areas as marketing. Then, when the Mann Institute was endowed at USC in 1998, she and Loeb became the first two recruitments to the initiative.

“One of his great strengths,” Richmond says of Mann, “was that he really had a core interest not just in saving the lives of people who were patients, but of people themselves. So when he developed a company, he didn’t just care about the people at the top, he also made it a point to get to know everyone there.” professor in the Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, were the first faculty recruited to AMI in 1998 (see sidebar, page 16). A third and final distribution will expand USC’s research partnership with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

“This sweeping initiative reflects Alfred Mann’s pioneering vision and has the power to expand human understanding in pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering,” Folt says.

The naming announcement also included the addition of Pharmaceutical Sciences to the Mann School’s name—an important distinction reflecting how the 118-year-old school and the field have advanced. In the school’s early days, the majority of students trained to be community pharmacists. But today—and for many years now—the school has trained pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists, medicinal chemists, pharmacologists, drug developers, clinical trialists, economists specializing in drug policy and costs, and regulatory scientists for all potential jobs, not for a specific one, Papadopoulos notes. In addition, the school’s burgeoning undergraduate program continues to attract growing numbers of students each semester, offering courses on topics such as pharmacoethics, precision medicine and cancer pharmacotherapy.

The naming endowment starts a new chapter for the school, funding student scholarships and faculty recruitment while continuing to expand a research infrastructure across USC’s University Park and Health Sciences campuses. The endowment will fuel a strategic plan that focuses in part on curricular changes that will “ensure the school’s longstanding place at the vanguard of progress in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences,” Papadopoulos says.

“We will continue to transform how students are educated, in all of our degree programs, so they remain prepared to continue pushing forward the frontiers of pharmacy and healthcare to benefit individuals and communities everywhere,” Papadopoulos adds. “As healthcare needs change, we will have the agility, coupled with the know-how and determination, to pursue innovations that anticipate and are ahead of the curve in meeting those changes.”

Over the coming year, the school will open a new community pharmacy and health center in South Los Angeles, reaffirming its commitment to alleviating health disparities created by pharmacy deserts—or shortage areas. This pharmacy will offer chronic disease management as well as health and wellness education.

2004

Co-founds

Neurosystec, which develops treatments for brain and nervous system conditions that combine ultraminiature technology with therapeutic agents

2011

Earns Lifetime Achievement Award from the Medical Design Excellence Awards program

2013

Second Sight wins approval for first artificial retina

2014

Food and Drug Administration approves MannKind’s application for inhalable insulin

2016

Dies at age 90, having founded 17 companies that had a cumulative value of $8 billion