Lecture to be held at Fairleigh Dickinson about how NPS Pharmaceuticals overcame obstacles on its way to success

Beth Fitzgerald//May 2, 2014//

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The turnaround tale of a leading New Jersey biotechnology company will be explored May 7 when Dr. Francois Nader, chief executive of Peapack-based NPS pharmaceuticals, delivers the 16 annual Richard M. Clarke Distinguished Entrepreneurial Lecture at Fairleigh Dickinson University.Since coming on board in 2008, Nader is credited with transforming NPS into a leading global biotech company focused on treatments for patients with rare disorders in gastroenterology and endocrinology.

A 30-year veteran of the health care industry, Nader previously was a venture partner at Care Capital; an executive at Aventis; and leader of global commercial operations at the Pasteur Vaccines division of Rhone-Poulenc. He chairs BioNJ, the state’s association of biotech companies, and is on the board of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.

James Barrood, director of the Rothman Institute, said the lecture will look at the problems NPS overcame on the way to becoming “one of the high flying biotechs in the country. It’s a great story of leadership and innovation — really a corporate entrepreneurship story.”

Barrood said NPS is both “a very compelling success story and a great story for New Jersey” given the angst around downsizing by big pharmaceutical companies, long the backbone of the state’s economy.

He said there will be plenty of time for questions that he expects will explore the process of turning a company around “and what innovation means in this new day” as big pharma increasingly outsources research to small biotechs like NPS.

The lecture, which will be held at the Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurship on the university’s Florham Park campus, is expected to draw up to 150 people and there is still space for people to register, Barrood said.

This is the 25th anniversary of the Rothman Institute, whose mission is “to help entrepreneurs and innovators be more successful, whether they are in academia or in industry or in the nonprofit sector,” Barrood said. “We build bridges between academia and the business community so that we can bring speakers in who provide real insight and real learning and best practices from the business community — so students get practical insights to complement the theory they learn in class.”

The institute also helps students network as they move into internships and jobs.

“It is a two way street that has worked very well over the past 25 years,” Barrood said.

The Rothman Institute is part of the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University, whose undergraduate and graduate students take entrepreneurship classes and can major or minor in entrepreneurship.

A key Rothman focus is a family business program that seeks to help family firms succeed and deal with the succession challenges that can be an obstacle to family business survival.

Introductory remarks will be delivered by Tracye McDaniel, chief executive of Choose New Jersey, an independently funded nonprofit organization whose mission is to encourage and nurture economic growth in New Jersey.

The event is 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.; tickets are available at Eventbrite. For more information call 973-443-8842, or email [email protected] with “RMC Lecture” in the subject line.

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