ZAFFARONI FOUNDATIONA successful biotech entrepreneur whose companies pioneered the technology behind transdermal patches, DNA chips, and the birth control pill, died at his home in California at the age of 91. Alejandro Zaffaroni was the man behind Alza, Affymetrix, Affymax, and many other successful firms. “He always started with a big idea behind his companies and then adapted on the ground to the reality of what could be achieved,” Isaac Stein, a business partner of Zaffaroni, told The New York Times.
According to the Times, Zaffaroni was born in Uruguay and became an orphan at age 18. He came to the U.S. for his graduate work in biochemistry on corticosteroids. During the 1950s and '60s he became an accomplished scientist at Syntex Pharmaceuticals. Writing for The Scientist in 1988, David Moreau, the first managing director of Syntex in the U.K., described how Zaffaroni’s advances in paper chromatography of steroids contributed to the development of “fluocinolone acetonide (known worldwide as Synalar), the oral progestins that made the birth-control pill possible, non-virilizing androgens such as oxymetholone (still used for the treatment of aplastic anemia), paramethasone and many others.”
Zaffaroni’s business acumen and congenial nature helped him to lure successful academics to ...
