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HIGH POINT - There are scientists and there are businesspeople. There aren't all that many scientists with business savvy or businesspeople with scientific smarts.
Adrian Mjalli, CEO of the start-up pharmaceutical company Trans Tech Pharma Inc., is a scientist with a rock solid business sense, according to his colleagues. Or perhaps he would be better described as a businessman with a serious scientific background.
At this point, it's hard to tell which is the more dominant aspect of his character.
Either way, Mjalli hopes to combine his talents to grow a company that will pursue things like treatments for diabetes complications, stroke and Alzheimer's
disease, for starters.
Mjalli also hopes to partner with other pharmaceutical companies in the drug research they are
doing.
Mjalli's evolution from scientist to businessman began with his father's strong emphasis that Mjalli get some kind of education.
He took his father's advice to heart, and completed his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry at age 25 from the University of Exeter in England.
"My parents wanted me to be an M.D.," Mjalli said. "But I fell in love with the chemistry."
In a classic case of reverse psychology, his high school chemistry teacher told him that he wasn't cut out for chemistry. Mjalli set out to prove him wrong and, in the process, found that he really loved the science.
"I thought it was fascinating to create something," he said, "and that thing you create has the potential to cure disease."
His parents, farmers in Jerusalem, were insistent that he and his...