Business
In 1956, Mann founded Spectrolab, the first of his aerospace companies. While at Spectrolab, an electrooptical systems company, he also founded Heliotek, a semiconductor company, that became a major supplier of solar cells for spacecraft. Among other accomplishments during his tenure, Mann's companies provided the electric power for over 100 spacecraft and constructed one of the lunar experiments. Although he sold both companies to Textron in 1960 (merged into one, Spectrolab is now a subsidiary of Boeing Satellite Systems) he continued to manage them until 1972. After he left those companies to found Pacesetter Systems, which focused on cardiac pacemakers, he sold that company in 1985 and managed it until 1992. It is now a part of St. Jude Medical. Mann then went on to establish MiniMed (insulin pumps and continuous glucose devices, now owned by Medtronic) and Advanced Bionics (neuroprosthetics), which was owned by Boston Scientific from 2004-2008. Boston Scientific and the Advanced Bionics management had agreed to split the company. Under this split, Boston Scientific would own the pain management and other neural stimulation portions and Advanced Bionics would focus on developing, manufacturing and distributing cochlear implants for the restoration of hearing to the deaf.
He is currently involved in several companies, including:
- Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of MannKind Corporation, a biomedical company working on a unique inhalable insulin for the treatment of diabetes and therapeutic vaccines for cancer;
- founder and Chairman of Second Sight, a biomed company working on a retinal prosthesis;
- founder and Chairman of Bioness, a company devoted to applying electrostimulation for functional neural defects such as paralysis;
- founder and Chairman of the Board of Quallion, LLC, a company producing high reliability batteries for medical products and for the military and aerospace industries;
- Chairman of Stellar Microelectronics, an electronic circuit manufacturer for the medical, military and aerospace industries;
- Mann also chairs the Southern California Biomedical Council (SCBC or SoCalBio), a trade association that represents and promotes the growth of the life-science community in the Greater Los Angeles region (see: http://www.socalbio.org).'
- Served on the Board of Directors and was the largest investor in Eclipse Aviation
Read more about this topic: Alfred E. Mann
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