A Philosopher on Wall Street: How Creative Financier Fred Frank Forged the Future

by David Ewing Duncan

Overview

An astonishing tale of Wall Street and the explosion of new life-science technologies and other industries of the future as told by one of the most creative dealmakers of the past 60 years.

When Fred Frank arrived on Wall Street in 1958, he became a key member of a small, whip-smart cadre of young financiers who began challenging the stodgy, risk-averse scions of old-world investment banking. He also became the first banker to specialize in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and health care services. Frank’s perpetual search for the new—pioneering technologies and innovative business models—has transformed our world.

A Philosopher on Wall Street is an intriguing tale of

• a man who was a force of verve and ingenuity on Wall Street, who built and nurtured new industries that have impacted everyone; 
• Wall Street and its history since the late 1950s, the surprisingly fascinating story of how high technology in America was capitalized, and the formation and meteoric rise of the pharma and biotech industries; 
• the best and worst of Wall Street over the past sixty years, and thoughts about the future of how to fund innovation to benefit both people and the bottom line
• colorful stories from top innovators, scientists, executives, and investors about deals, intrigue, genius, booms and busts.

​This is the story of one of the most creative dealmakers of the past sixty years, a master artist of finance whose erudition and grace helped shape our world, who has always believed that inspired science, entrepreneurship, and investing are the keys to a better future. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626348714
Publisher:	Greenleaf Book Group Press
Publication date:	09/14/2021
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Ewing Duncan is the best-selling author of eleven books, an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, and the cofounder and curator of Arc Fusion, a media, events, and consulting company. David writes for Vanity Fair, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, Fortune, National Geographic, Inc., Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, Newsweek, Discover, and many other publications. He is a former commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition and formerly a special correspondent and producer for ABC’s Nightline and 20/20; a producer for Discovery Channel; and a correspondent for PBS NOVA’s ScienceNow! He was the founding director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley and is a member of the faculty at Singularity University.

Table of Contents

Foreword Fred Frank ix

Preface xi

Prologue: The Quake Heard 'Round the World 1

October 17, 1989

1 Out of the West 9

Salt Lake City Years, 1932-1948

2 Education of a Conforming Nonconformist 25

Hotchkiss, Yale, Paris, and Stanford, 1948-1958

3 Young Turks on Wall Street 45

Early Wall Street Years, 1958-1973

4 Bravura Deals and the Birth of Biotechnology 77

Wall Street, Capital, and the Spectacular Rise of Biotechnology, 1974-1984

5 The Banks Get Bigger and the Deals Fly 125

Lehman Falls the First Time, Wall Street Seesaws, and a Golden Age of Innovation and High Technology Arises, 1984-1989

6 Biotech's Wild Ride 161

"Fred's Deal" (Genentech-Roche I & II) and the Heady Years of Promise, 1989-2001 161

7 A New Century 211

Booms and Busts, Lehman's Fall, and the Aftermath, 2002-2020

Afterword: Financing the Future by Fred Frank 239

A Master Dealmaker Provides His Thoughts and Reflections about a Sixty-Plus-Year Career

Acknowledgements 253

Notes 255

About the Author 261

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Few investment bankers have secured lasting legacies for innovation, especially for innovations that are clearly socially useful. Fred is unique and far exceeded the high expectations that I and others in our training class believed were possible.” 
—Burton Malkiel, economist and author, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, and fellow trainee at Smith, Barney with Fred Frank in 1958

“Fred’s legendary skill as an investment banker led to the establishment of businesses that have quite literally transformed the life sciences. For biotechnology, across many decades, Fred was always in the conversation: referenced, quoted, consulted, and admired. Simply put, Fred made practical the dreams of brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs.”
—Roger Perlmutter,  MD, PhD, chairman, Merck Research Laboratories

“We are in the ‘golden age of biotechnology’ and are witnessing its profound impacts in drugs, diagnostics, agriculture, research, and many more applications. How did the biotech revolution evolve? Who were the visionary players in the dramas along the way? Read this book to trace the story arc of Fred Frank, who was in the middle of it all as an advisor, banker, matchmaker, creative financier, and networker.”
—Brook Byers, founding partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

“Fred always saw around the corner before anybody else in the healthcare industry. He has this quite unique ability to connect the science and financial worlds, but unlike most, Fred thinks in years and decades, not in days and months.”
—Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer, Moderna, Inc. 

“Very few of us get to become legends in our own lifetime, but Fred Frank is a deserving member of that elite club. He was also one of the geniuses behind the creation of many of the modern funding vehicles that made it possible to raise the amounts of money required for capital-intensive, high-risk endeavors. And yet he always made time to help those coming behind him: kind, humble, ever ready to share his wisdom. And he walked on water—but you have to read the book to find out about that.”
—Karen Bernstein, co-founder, editor in chief, Biocentury

“Fred is an innovator and seasoned Wall Street veteran who has pioneered investments in biotechnology, paving the way for its explosive growth. A Philosopher on Wall Street captures how Fred’s wide-ranging life experience led to a successful and continuing sixty-year career that has revolutionized the financial and biotech industries.”
—Peter Salovey, President of Yale University and Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology

“As I emerged from a world of surgery and academia into business entrepreneurship, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Fred, a giant among giants on Wall Street took the time to be a guide to me and many others as we navigated this foreign financial universe. He became more than just a trusted consultant who masterfully guided the sale of my first biotechnology company; he became a valued friend and mentor.”
—Arie Belldegrun, MD FACS, senior managing partner, co-founder, Vida Ventures

“Fred Frank pioneered the provision of investment banking services tailored specifically for the healthcare industry, including a robust practice with cutting edge biotechnology companies. Fred invariably conducted himself as an old school fiduciary, with class, integrity, dedication, and intelligence. ”
—David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University

Editorial Reviews

01/23/2023

Storied investment banker Frank invites readers into his innovative career as a forward-thinking dealmaker in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and health care services industries. Filled with insight into Frank's life, exciting behind-the-scenes accounts of epochal Wall Street deals, and revelations about how and why industry-shaping investments do or don’t happen, A Philosopher on Wall Street is a rich, intriguing read about how the world actually runs—and what it takes to balance risk and reward to empower innovators to make that world better. Duncan brings vigor and clarity to a story centered on the biotech boom, the development of groundbreaking medications and technology, and Frank’s prescience at “leveraging billions of dollars to further innovation that at times seemed highly esoteric and risky but in the end proved to be right.”

Duncan recounts, with striking detail, Frank's Depression-era childhood, in Salt Lake City, military service, education (Hotchkiss, Yale), and career, highlighting his consultation on deals between major corporations where Frank was sought out for his unique skills in risk assessment, merging companies, and more. Correlations between Frank’s upbringing and success are highlighted: “I grew up in the West when there was this feeling that things were new and just getting started,” Frank states, noting that there, in the middle of the century, “It was much easier for someone to start a business, to strike out on his own, if you were willing to work hard.”

Such hard work is a recurring theme through Duncan’s many engaging anecdotes, which bring life to Frank’s early experience at Smith, Barney—where he became Wall Street’s first dedicated pharmaceutical industry analyst—then at a not-yet-behemoth Lehman Brothers in the 1970s, where Frank helped launch a biotech revolution, funding the genetic research that would quite literally change the world. Duncan ably captures the texture of Wall Street life in bygone eras, while presenting the science and the dealmaking with clarity and showmanship. Frank himself pens an engaging afterword. This inspiring biography will fascinate readers interested in finance, medicine, and bold innovation.

Takeaway: Exciting accounts of a pioneering investment banker and the biotech revolution.

Great for fans of: Robert Teitelman’s Gene Dreams, Sally Smith Hughes's Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech.

Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews