MITCH JAVIDI JASON VARNEY | VARNEYPHOTO.COM

When Mitch Javidi came to the United States from Iran at the age of 13, landing in Oklahoma, no one could have predicted that he would eventually run a highly successful company that is a catalyst for biotechnology in North Carolina. Javidi is CEO of the Catevo Group, which is head-quartered in Raleigh, NC, and with offices in Charlotte, Washington, DC, Miami, and Dubai. It serves all levels of the biotechnology industry from startup to marketing. This organization was born in an academic atmosphere and maintains a strong connection to university life.

Catevo's orientation reflects Javidi's personal background, starting with his graduate training in the 1980s. "I was working on my PhD at the University of Oklahoma and at the same time working with the Walmart Corporation and their pharmacy business," Javidi explains. His academic training was a combination of communications and business, with a strong focus on measurement to understand the assessment side of business, and Javidi assumed his future would be solidly academic.

"I always had an interest in the science aspect of communications, marketing, and strategic business evolution, and I was exposed to the pharmacy side. I wanted to do my teaching in an area close to the industry. We were lucky enough to come to Research Triangle Park and North Carolina State in 1988 when I finished my PhD," he recalls. While in residence at North Carolina State University (NCSU), Javidi also began to teach courses at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.

In North Carolina, he also began interacting with the burgeoning pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. "Some of those companies were spinoffs from research institutions like UNC and NC State, from biology, chemistry, medicine, or agriculture," he says. And so the move to consulting on issues of business evolution, communications, measurement, and marketing with these companies was a natural step.

From personal experience, Javidi knows that most academics need help when they move off campus and into the real world. "Many biotech companies start with one scientist who knows the science... [but is] without much business experience," he explains. "So when they set up the company they have to set up not only the business processes but also the working processes in terms of how the employees interact with each other and how the company communicates with investors and other business," Javidi says.

At first, Javidi was teaching, conducting his own research, and consulting as a one-man show. "I got tenure and promotions, [and] advanced through the university. In 1998, 10 years after coming to the university, I decided to leave for a few years and see if I could start a consulting company."

Javidi started Digiton, a strategy consulting firm for biotech and pharmaceutical businesses. Digiton's mission was to facilitate and streamline communication, business, and technology. Most important, according to Javidi, Digiton helped companies optimize product development and the supply chain. With the evolution of the Internet, Javidi's communication knowledge moved into yet another area, information flow and competitive intelligence.

After a three-year absence from the university, he had to make a decision: return to campus or give up his tenure and continue consulting. He stayed with consulting. "But I told the university I would still like to be involved," he recalls. "The dean of the College of Management asked me how I could help the university, besides teaching." With two colleagues - Sam Straight, a GlaxoSmithKline veteran, and Rob Handfield, Bank of America Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at NCSU's - Javidi proposed a biopharma MBA program at NCSU. They pulled together an international biotechnology and pharmaceuticals advisory board and worked with faculty and students to design the program. Javidi remains part of the university as an adjunct professor, advising graduate students and also teaching as needed.

Javidi spends most of his time, however, as president and CEO of the Catevo Group, which is a merger of several companies that came together in 2006. "The reason for the merger was a shared vision to build a strong global company with subsidiaries," Javidi explains. In the past year, Catevo pulled together a broad range of people and skills to provide a range of services for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. The company is also moving even farther across the globe, to India and Shanghai. "Many biotech companies here would like to get their message outside of North Carolina, not only to the rest of the United States but also into the Middle East, Far East, and Europe," he says.

Catevo's marketing and consulting also help the global industry come to North Carolina. "A lot of technologies are being developed oversees, and they are starting to move into the area. Sometimes they become our clients as well because they want to move into North Carolina," he explains. "We have assembled exceptional experts to help our clients reach their strategic objectives as one team with one vision."

Catevo is busy in North Carolina as well. For example, the company worked with Greer Laboratories, a leading supplier of allergy immunotherapy testing and treatment materials, to rebrand itself. The work included a range of integrated marketing communication, market research, and strategic business services. Catevo also helped with the business strategies for both Respirics, a company that combines proprietary inhalation technology with powder-drug formulation expertise to develop unique drug-delivery solutions, and Plexigen, a company focusing on instrumentation and service for genetic and proteomic testing. The company also built Web sites for Respirics, Greer Labs, Liposcience (a lipoprotein diagnostics company), and DARA BioSciences (a development-stage company). Moreover, several local biopharmaceutical companies continue utilizing Catevo's consulting and marketing offerings as well as its online products, such as inventory-management tools, supply-chain analytics, and a competitive-intelligence hub.

Today, Catevo echoes Javidi's eclectic training and his interests. "I chose to be in the consulting business because of my passion for teaching and learning," Javidi says enthusiastically. "It's really exciting because in biopharma there are always new and exciting technologies coming up, and all of our clients are in different stages and have different needs." As he sums up, "Without my family, Catevo team, our clients and friends, as well as my mentors in the academics and business, I would not be where I am. In many ways, I have been lucky."