Profile: Alfred Mann

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ALFRED MANN

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Chief Executive, MannKind Inc.

Alfred Mann needs no special diet nor impressive fitness regimen to keeps his heart healthy and energy nearly boundless.

It’s work that keeps his mind active, and that’s what drives the 83-year-old Mann, who said he generally puts in longer hours now than when he founded his first company more than a half-century ago. An 80-hour workweek is not atypical for him.

“Too many people whither away when they retire,” Mann said. “My problem probably is that I’ve got too much on my plate.”

He started out as an electro-optical physics scientist, then became a serial entrepreneur, and is now a multibillionaire as a result of selling seven Los Angeles-area technology and medical device companies. He now nurtures several more.

Among his many successes is publicly traded insulin pump developer MiniMed Inc., which was acquired by Medtronic Inc. in 2001.

Mann also is nonexecutive chairman of companies developing a visual prosthesis for the blind, and producing batteries for medical and aerospace industries. His Alfred Mann Foundation has helped found bioengineering incubators at the USC and two other institutions. He also is directly involved in engineering some devices that have yet to be publicized.

These days, he spends most of his time on his namesake Valencia medical device company, MannKind Inc., which is preparing an innovative inhalable insulin device, called Afresa, for regulatory approval.

“MannKind could end up being the most significant thing I’ve done,” he said.

Mann recalls key advice from his last employer before starting his first company in the 1950s: When starting a business, figure out how much money it’s going to take, double it and then don’t go into business unless you have three times that amount.

Mann has learned to leverage technology to squeeze the most out of his 12-hour workdays. When he and wife Claude had to briefly move out of their Holmby Hills home a few years ago for renovations, Mann established a home office with teleconferencing capabilities at their second home in Las Vegas. He liked the setup so much that the couple continues to spend much of the year there. He commutes in a private jet to board meetings in Los Angeles and investor meetings on the East Coast.

Mann is thrice divorced and the father of seven children. He admits work commitments took a toll on his personal life over the years. But he now enjoys home-cooked meals with his wife as a welcome respite from a grueling schedule.

He’s tempted to power down. But he doesn’t know how. His wife has told him she wants a more boring life.

“And I’ve come to a point to where I’d like a little more boring life, too,” he said. “But I can’t see retiring.”

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