Turn Challenges into Opportunities Through Reframing

 Meet the Founder 

Dr. Frank L. Douglas Ph. D., M.D.

An award-winning industry veteran with more than three decades of experience in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and entrepreneurship, Douglas has held leadership roles in both large and small biopharmaceutical companies. Prominent among these was his role as Executive Vice President and member of the Board of Management of Aventis SA (now Sanofi), where he was responsible for global research, development, regulatory affairs, and marketing support. He led teams that were responsible for the development and marketing approval of many drugs, including Allegra, Lantus, Taxotere, and Actonel. He was also Chief Scientific Advisor of Bayer Healthcare AG and served on the Boards of several Biopharmaceutical companies, including as Chairman for Alantos Pharmaceutical Inc. This company was sold to Amgen.

Douglas has also held academic positions including Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Hypertension Clinic at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. While at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Douglas was a Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management and also held similar appointments in the departments of biology, biological engineering, and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and was the founder and first executive director of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation. Douglas has introduced and implemented several innovative concepts in industry and academia. These include Value Driven Engineering, The Accountable Care Community, the i6 Process for transforming bedside observations into innovative products, and the use of Chemical Biology in Drug Discovery. He was a University Professor in the College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, where, in collaboration with three hospitals and the Northeast Ohio Medical University, several of his concepts were implemented.

Awards and Honors

Douglas is the recipient of the 2007 Black History Makers Award and has been honored twice as the Global Pharmaceutical R&D Director of the Year, in recognition of his leadership and success in improving innovation and productivity in pharmaceutical companies. He has also received the Medal of Honor and an Honorary Professorship from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. He was honored as one of Geoffrey Beene Gives Back® and GQ Magazine’s 2010 Rock Stars of Science™, and received the Caribbean Luminary Award from the American Foundation for The University of the West Indies and the Executive of the Year Award from the local affiliate of Sales and Marketing Executives International. Other awards include the NOBCChe Lifetime Achievement Award, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest’s Odyssey Award, and the Louis B. Russell Memorial American Heart Association Award.

Douglas is the senior partner emeritus of PureTech Ventures. He is a former member of the Battelle Memorial Institute Board of Directors, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Advisory Council (NIH), BioOhio Board of Directors, Governor Kasich’s Ohio Medical Corridor initiative, national chairman of the Value-driven Engineering and U.S. Global Competitiveness initiative, and was a member of the Lehigh University Board of Trustees.

Academic Training

Douglas holds a BS in Chemistry from Lehigh University, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, and an M.D. from Cornell University. He did his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution and a fellowship in neuroendocrinology at the National Institutes of Health.