Starting over: Bernard Salick got kicked out of the health care company he founded - so he's coming back with a new one that's focused on treating AIDS.Dr. Bernard Salick, 57, is the founder and former chief executive of Salick Health Care Inc., a first-of-its-kind chain of cancer and renal care (kidney and dialysis treatment) clinics based in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . Salick left in April after the British drug firm Zeneca Group PLC purchased the remaining 50 percent of the company it didn't already own. The parting was not pleasant. Zeneca CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. David Barnes David Barnes is the name of a number of people:
adj. Not sincere; hypocritical. in  sin·cere ly adv. . Since then, Salick has been busy crossing the country, meeting with investment bankers, other pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies and physicians to put together a new global health care company, Bentley Health Care Inc. The new firm, headquartered in a Beverly Hills Beverly Hills, city (1990 pop. 31,971), Los Angeles co., S Calif., completely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles; inc. 1914. The largely residential city is home to many motion-picture and television personalities. building Salick co-owns with entertainment mogul David Geffen, plans to compete with Salick Health Care on cancer and renal treatment. It also plans to establish outpatient AIDS, catastrophic illness catastrophic illness A morbid condition that results in health care costs that exceed a person's income, or which compromise financial independence, reducing him/her to subsistence or near-poverty levels; CIs are usually life-threatening and may leave significant and organ transplant organ transplant: see transplantation, medical. treatment centers. Shortly after leaving his namesake company, Salick announced that he would donate $4.5 million to his alma mater, Queens College Queens College: see New York, City Univ. of. in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , to establish a center for molecular and biological research aimed at creating a vaccine for AIDS. The center will be headed by Luc Montagnier Luc Montagnier (born 1932 in Chabris, France) is a French virologist. In 1982 he was asked for assistance with establishing the possible underlying retroviral cause of a mysterious new syndrome, AIDS, by Dr. , co-discoverer of the AIDS virus AIDS virus n. See HIV. and president of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris. Question: Why did you leave Zeneca? Answer: I was terminated without cause. I was quite surprised. And I've now developed a new company called Bentley Health Care. Q: You didn't see it coming? A: Absolutely not. It was an absolute, total shock to myself, to everybody in my company, in my family. Though it had been planned, obviously, for a long time by Zeneca, it was a total shock to me. As a matter of fact, the day before, I was having very friendly conversations about my development plans. I was terminated by a man I have a great deal of respect for, (Zeneca CEO) Sir David Barnes. I have absolutely no idea why he terminated me, but I want to move on with my wonderful new health care company. Q: What does it take to start up a new chain of clinics? A: It takes a hell of a lot of activity when you're terminated without cause and all your files are in your building and you can't go back to it. In the past two weeks it's taken a ton of people to rebuild this building (in Beverly Hills), which was essentially empty and is now almost totally occupied. I didn't have my office and I didn't have my files and didn't have my phone numbers, so the first thing I had to establish was a communications network The transmission channels interconnecting all client and server stations as well as all supporting hardware and software. . It was not easy. I've been working seven days a week, as I always work, 20 hours a day. I started work here today at four in the morning. But I have great people and I'm doing it. Also I've had a great deal of interest from insurance companies, other health care providers, physicians - everybody bombarding Bombarding is the process of 'pumping' a Cold Cathode Lighting tube (otherwise called Neon Signs). Information A detailed process of bombarding can be found here, Bombarding. me with desires to work together. I have been back and forth to New York twice and will be going again this weekend. Q: One of the beauties of Salick Health Care was that it had the zeal of its founder - you - plus the corporate backing of Zeneca. Can you compete against that now, going it alone? A: It took me 12 years to get to this point. If I tried simply to reestablish it solely with what I've learned, and not having the access and finances of a pharmaceutical or giant public company, it would take me another 12 years, or maybe seven. But if I have the backing, as I intend to, of giant companies, I can do it much faster. I have an extraordinary opportunity, one offered very few people in this word. I was able to alter the course of cancer care delivery in the United States and in the world. This is a fact. I've now been offered an extraordinary opportunity. I can now, with the right doctors and the right people, alter the course of care and delivery in a new catastrophic illness, AIDS. And why you see me looking 20 years younger is that I'm absolutely reinvigorated with this extraordinary opportunity. Q: What's the thinking behind the chair you established at Queens College? A: If you come out with a pill in the United States that sophisticated people and affluent people can take four times a day, like protease inhibitors Protease Inhibitors Definition A protease inhibitor is a type of drug that cripples the enzyme protease. An enzyme is a substance that triggers chemical reactions in the body. - the AIDS cocktail - that's not going to work in Africa, where a guy can't afford to buy a bottle of water or food. You have to come up with a vaccine. That's the only way to treat the disease. So here's what I do. I created a molecular and cellular biology cellular biology n. The study of the molecular or chemical interactions of biological phenomena. institute at Queens College, chaired by Professor Luc Montagnier, the co-discoverer of the AIDS virus. He was brought to me by people who thought I'd be able to do the same thing with AIDS that I did with cancer. But I must keep that absolutely pristine. I must make sure that I have absolutely no influence over that chair once it's given. All I want is to sit on the scientific advisory board, but I will not be allowed to vote. At the same time I will call on every other AIDS researcher in the world and I will attempt to have them affiliated with my public company to set the guidelines for the therapy for the disease. I will do that in AIDS, I will do that in cancer, I will do that in organ transplants and I will do that in renal failure renal failure n. Acute or chronic malfunction of the kidneys resulting from any of a number of causes, including infection, trauma, toxins, hemodynamic abnormalities, and autoimmune disease, and often resulting in systemic symptoms, especially edema, . Q: What mistakes did you make at Salick that you won't make this time around? A: I've learned from experience, as we all tend to do in this world. I've been extremely successful and I've done very well for shareholders. People assume I'm a good bet to do that again. That's why to set up a series of AIDS centers around the world will not take me 12 years. It'll take me one to two years. And I know now who the very best players are. I may have lost my name to another company but Bernie Salick is Bernie Salick and my credibility is documented. I also know now how to make it clear that in any relationship I form with a partner there will be a massive wall between anything done in the provision of health care and anything else done by that company, whether it makes pharmaceuticals, makes biotech products or runs an insurance company. Q: You talk in very grand terms, and even your critics say you are a visionary. Are you a good manager? A: If I wasn't a good manager, as some people may have alleged, why not simply take my name off the facilities that I produced, and just use their name, OK? If I wasn't a good manager, why does everybody come to me to run and develop centers for them? Like any human being, I have certain very good skills and certain skills that are not so good. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. how to use a computer. I could spend the next six months learning how to use a computer or I could do what I'm great at and bring together the best experts in the world in AIDS and get them together to cure AIDS. Would you rather have me learning how to use a computer or focusing on a cure for AIDS? Dr. Bernard Salick Company: Bentley Health Care Inc. Position: Founder, president, CEO Born: New York, 1940 Education: B.S., Queens College, New York; M.D., University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission Hobbies: Reading the memoirs of great leaders Personal: Married, three children. |
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