By Shawn Lawrence
INNOVATOR
Former Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear, presents Dr. Albert Friesen with the Gold Leaf award for INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP at Bio 2013 held in Chicago, IL .
manitoBa’S Bio BuilDer
Dr. Albert Friesen: A Legacy of Leadership
M
anitoban bio-entrepreneur Dr. Albert Friesen has devoted his entire career to building the biotechnology sector in both the province of Manitoba and by extension Canada. With more than 40 years of experience in the industry, Dr. Friesen’s name is linked to some of Canada’s biggest biotech success stories, among them, the creation of Canada’s first profitable biotech company ABI Biotechnology (now Apotex Fermentation), and playing a prominent role in the development of Canada’s first biotech product WinRho®. Moreover, Dr. Friesen has been an advocate for the industry, both at the regional and
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national level, co-chairing the Manitoba Innovation Council and serving as a member of the Premier’s Economic Advisory Council in Manitoba. On the national stage, he was instrumental in the launch of the Industrial Biotechnology Association of Canada, now BIOTECanada in 1986, where he served as chair and founding director. Over the course of his career, he has also founded or co-founded numerous other bio-ventures, including Novopharm Biotech Inc., Genesys Pharma Inc. and KAM Scientific Inc. In all, some 16 life science companies owe their existence to Dr. Friesen. He is in every sense of the term a pioneer on the national biotech stage and few can match his many achievements or the impact he has had as a builder for the sector. “In a way I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit, creating and growing companies is something I’ve always been comfortable with and liked doing,” says Dr. Friesen. “As an entrepreneur, you’re
the one putting in the hard work, taking the risks, doing the things needed to grow the business from the ground up, planning ahead and simply trying to achieve success.” Dr. Friesen found his way to the entrepreneurial life in a unique way. The seeds of his entrepreneurial spirit were sowed many years before, not in the lab or an academic setting, but rather, as a teenager on his family’s farm. “I was born and raised in Kane, Manitoba, a very small town. There were six kids in our family — three boys, three girls. My father had a unique way of teaching my siblings and I the value of money and hard work, the farmer’s mentality so-to-speak. When I was 10-years-old, he gave each of us the income from an acre of land as our allowance and we had to learn to manage that allowance for the entire year. In farming you live from year-to-year, you rely on weather and nature to succeed. So, there’s obviously risk involved, and a need to plan ahead and work hard. I discovered much later that biotech had similarities in that it is high risk and there are cycles of good years and bad. To be successful one has to manage the successes of
