FEATURE STORY — May/June 2006

His Chemical Romance

Michael Flavin may have had his chemistry set for only a few hours on Christmas Day, but that didn’t stop him from finding success in the pharmaceutical industry

By Greg Holden

Michael Flavin

Michael Flavin, PHD ’84 PHARM, learned what it means to be part of a larger group early in his life, when he received a chemistry set as a Christmas present.

“In those days, chemistry sets had real chemicals and glass tubes and, to tell you the truth, were probably a little dangerous,” Flavin relates. “I was about 10 years old at the time, and my five brothers and sisters were much younger than me. I was eager to try out my new chemistry set on Christmas morning, but my parents suddenly realized that this was going to be fine for me but real trouble for the two- and three-year olds. So they took it away. I had my chemistry set for all of one day. Maybe that was the reason I loved working in the laboratory later in life.”

Now 49, Michael Flavin has since used chemistry equipment in ways that have more than made up for the loss of his first chemistry set. Since earning his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from UIC, he has founded several pharmaceutical companies. Currently, Flavin is CEO of Woodridge-based Advanced Life Sciences, which oversees formulation and testing of drugs designed to combat illnesses such as pneumonia, AIDS and cancer.

The High Cost of Drug Development

The process of developing a new drug takes many years and involves an extensive network of professionals. Accordingly, Flavin describes his role at Advanced Life Sciences not only as a scientist, but as a teacher and coach. “Today, because research is so costly, nobody can do it all,” says Flavin. “Things proceed on the basis of teamwork.

“At the very early stages of drug discovery, there is collaboration between our chemistry and biology laboratories that is similar to what you find at a university,” he explains. “We then outsource many of the more specialized and advanced activities of drug development to companies that perform that kind of work.”

For example, Advanced Life Sciences works with experts in chemistry, biology and animal pharmacology to process the original medicinal substance; a company that converts the compound into tablets; another that conducts clinical trials; and yet another that manufactures the drug. “The goal is to develop a product for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to review and approve,” says Flavin. “It would be very costly to rebuild the development infrastructure that already exists.

“Once you make a discovery, it’s just the beginning of the pipeline,” he continues. “You have to prove that the new drug candidate will kill the disease-causing virus or bacteria in test tubes, then in animals, then in humans. This takes years and millions of dollars.”
Recently, Advanced Life Sciences licensed a new antibiotic, Cethromycin, from Abbott Laboratories (the original discoverer of the drug). Formulated to treat respiratory-tract infections that have resisted current antibiotics, Cethromycin is currently in Phase III clinical trials, which are expected to last for one year. If all goes well and the drug receives FDA approval, Cethromycin will be available to the public in 2008.

While large pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer and Abbott, can perform much of the research and development in house, they prefer to focus on medications for chronic medical conditions like diabetes, because those drugs provide an opportunity for greater long-term revenue and profit streams. Consequently, developing and marketing specialized medicines, such as Cethro-mycin, provides a niche for firms like Advanced Life Sciences.

Visit to Library Yields Important Discovery

As an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame, Flavin was still undecided about his future academic and professional goals. However, Flavin did know he wanted to help people and make a difference.

“For a long time, I had been interested in what makes the human body tick,” he says.

“So, I was thinking of following up my undergraduate chemistry degree with a degree in biochemistry. I was in the Notre Dame library one day, and I spotted a copy of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. I realized that medicinal chemistry was a field where you can use biology and chemistry together to help people. It was something practical; and you could make a difference if you [helped develop] a new drug to treat a disease.”

His growing interest in medicinal chemistry brought him to UIC, where he met James Gearien ’41 PHARM, then chairman of UIC’s Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy. “Professor James Gearien was a great man,” says Flavin. “He gave me a chance at UIC and helped me gain acceptance into the department. He also helped me get started in my career.”

As a graduate student, Flavin served as a teaching assistant. (Today, he teaches periodically in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry as an adjunct professor.)
Flavin studied with professors Mat-thias Lu, Ludwig Bauer and Duane Venton. “All of them were outstanding professors,” he recalls. “I spent five years getting my Ph.D., and I loved every minute of it. Just to be there and see the quality of their work was really inspiring.”

Lu, assistant head for curricular affairs in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, worked with Flavin on his Ph.D. dissertation. “He was one of the most creative Ph.D. students I had in my research group,” recalls Lu. “I am still amazed by his ability to synthesize the conformationally restricted analogs of at-ropine, the target compounds needed for his dissertation studies, in such a short time. I am certain his work will always be on the cutting edge of drug design and discovery.”
Advanced Life Sciences Goes Public

After graduating from UIC, Flavin pursued a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. After-wards, he worked at Baxter Inter-national for two years, then left to start a new company, MediChem Life Sciences. In the beginning, he and his wife, Karen, were its only employees. They worked in a one-room lab located at Chicago Technology Park.

MediChem performed drug research for other companies and tried to develop new drug compounds on its own. From this modest beginning, Flavin’s company eventually grew to more than 240 employees housed in a 110,000-square-foot research center. “We did drug research for 90 pharmaceutical companies from all over the world,” says Flavin. “We built ourselves [into a company with] an international reputation.” In 1999, MediChem spun off a new company, Advanced Life Sciences.

In 2002, MediChem was acquired by DeCode Genetics, an Icelandic genomics company that maps disease genes. “That was the same year that a number of us—including myself and a couple of my brothers—left MediChem and joined the team that we had created at Advanced Life Sciences,” says Flavin.

This past August, Advanced Life Sciences conducted a $35 million initial public offering of stock to raise capital to develop and market its products. (In March 2006, the company completed a private placement of 10.2 shares of common stock, raising $36 million in gross proceeds.)

“The upside of becoming a public company is we have more visibility and access to the funds that will allow us to go forward,” comments Flavin. “The downside is that the emphasis is always on what’s closest to commercialization, so we don’t get to focus on what’s in the early stages of development.”

Flavin also acknowledges that his company cannot survive on only one product. “We’ve got to create a pipeline of diverse products,” he says. “In our business, we never know which new drug candidates will succeed and which will fail.”

Biotech’s Extended Family

Throughout his academic and professional career, Flavin has worked at maintaining and cultivating connections in the biotechnology field.

For example, he continues to partner with UIC’s College of Pharmacy in an attempt to discover new drug candidates from plant sources. (See UIC Alumni Magazine, July/August 2005, “A Walk Through Nature’s Pharmacy,” pg. 22, for more about this research group.) One promising result of this collaboration is a drug designed to fight melanoma (skin cancer), now entering clinical trials.

“We frequently form partnerships with UIC,” explains Flavin. “After a discovery comes forward from an academic institution such as UIC and a license agreement is executed, we can take [the discovery] through the next steps—preclinical development, animal studies and then clinical trial development. If good things happen as a result of our work, such as royalties or sales of the drug, the academic institution remains our partner and shares the benefits. In some cases, we can act as an extension of a university in the commercialization process. It’s a win-win situation.”

Flavin sees members of the UIC community as part of the extended scientific “family” with whom he works on a daily basis. He also believes that biotechnology firms play an important role in the general community. “If we succeed, it isn’t just the company that benefits,” explains Flavin. “In the process, we create new jobs and enhance the careers of our long-term employees. We bring educated professionals into communities. They value education and give back to their neighborhoods. And it’s also very good for the local, state and national economies.”