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John Freund (business executive)

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John Freund
Alma materHarvard University
Occupation(s)Founder and CEO of Skyline Ventures
Website[1]

John Freund is an American satirist and business executive.[1][2] Freund and collaborator David Porter created the 1981 satirical poster Bedtime for Brezhnev[3][4][5] and co-authored the 1982 satirical book The Official MBA Handbook or How to Succeed in Business Without a Harvard MBA,[1] which spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.[6][7] Freund is the co-founder of Intuitive Surgical,[8] and the co-founder and former CEO of Arixa Pharmaceuticals.[9] He founded Skyline Ventures in 1997.[2]

Early life and education

Freund grew up in New York City. He graduated in 1975 with a B.A. from Harvard [1] where he was an editor of the Harvard Crimson.[10][11][12] After completing his B.A., Freund received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.[13] He received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1982.[1]

Career

Early career

In April 1981, while enrolled in Harvard Business School, Freund collaborated with classmate David Porter on a satirical poster for an imaginary movie called “Bedtime for Brezhnev”, featuring then-president Ronald Reagan.[3][11][5] The poster sold 275,000 copies,[14] and sales of “Bedtime for Brezhnev” earned them enough money to pay their second year tuition.[1][5] In the 2021 book “Cowboy Presidents”, it was reported that Reagan was rumored to have loved the poster.[14] In 1982, Freund and David Porter co-authored the book The Official MBA Handbook or How to Succeed in Business Without a Harvard MBA, which they published under the pen names Jim Fisk and Robert Barron, respectively.[1][15] The idea for the book first emerged when Freund and Porter approached the publisher Simon & Schuster to distribute “Bedtime for Brezhnev”, but the head of trade paperbacks instead suggested the pair write a satirical book about MBA’s.[13][16] At the time of the book’s release, both men were preparing to start jobs with investment banks.[1][11] The Official MBA Handbook or How to Succeed in Business Without a Harvard MBA spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.[6][7]

Medical startups

Freund began his business career as an investment banker in 1982 with Morgan Stanley.[6] In 1995, he co-founded the robotics startup Intuitive Surgical.[8][17] Freund negotiated a licensing agreement with SRI for surgical technology that formed the nucleus of Intuitive Surgical’s line of products.[2] Freund founded the venture capital firm Skyline Ventures in 1997[2][6] to invest in early-stage biotech.[18] Skyline was the lead investor in SI-Bone, a manufacturer of sacroiliac fusion implants that became commercially available in 2009. Following the investment, Freund joined the board of directors.[19] In 2016,[20] Freund co-founded the antibiotics manufacturer Arixa Pharmaceuticals and served as the company’s CEO.[9] During Freund’s tenure, the company developed ARX-1796,[21] an oral version of a β-lactamase inhibitor called avibactam that was previously only able to be administered intravenously.[22] Freund ran Arixa Pharmaceuticals as a virtual company, crediting low-overhead costs in the development of ARX-1796.[21] Arixa Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Pfizer in 2020.[9]

Personal life

In 1979, Freund married Linda Gray Sexton, a writer and the daughter of the Pulitzer prize winning poet Anne Sexton.[6] They divorced in 1998.[6] Freund is married to Linda S. Grais.[23]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Ross, Nancy L. (12 September 1982). "Harvard Spoof Brings Degree of Success". Washington Post. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d Carlsen, Clifford (28 December 1997). "JMedical financier ready to operate after raising $23M". San Francisco Business Journal. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  3. ^ a b "Poster Pranksters". Washington Post. No. 27 August 1981. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  4. ^ "TWO CAPITALIST TOOLS TELL US HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING TO GET AN MBA". People. No. 20 December 1982.
  5. ^ a b c Heinzel, Ron S. (27 June 1982). "$5 Education May Supplant Harvard MBA". LA Times.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Berman, Jeffrey (3 September 2019). Mad Muse: The Mental Illness Memoir in a Writer's Life and Work. Emerald Publishing. pp. 190–198. ISBN 978-1-78973-807-0.
  7. ^ a b Tumulty, Karen (6 December 1982). "MBA Spoof Nothing to Laugh At". LA Times.
  8. ^ a b Tindera, Michela (14 February 2019). "BILLIONAIRES DAILY COVER Robot Wars: $60B Intuitive Surgical Dominated Its Market For 20 Years. Now Rivals Like Alphabet Are Moving In". Forbes. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  9. ^ a b c Vermes, Krystle (23 October 2020). "Could Arixa Pharmaceuticals' Lead Product Pave the Way for More Efficient Antibiotics?". BioSpace. Retrieved 26 May 2023.
  10. ^ "J.G. Freund Weds Linda Sexton". New York Times. 20 August 1979. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  11. ^ a b c Gertson, Jill (11 July 1982). "Spoofing M.B.A. for big bucks". Providence Sunday Journal.
  12. ^ "Linda Sexton, John Freund Set Wedding". New York Times. 15 July 1979. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  13. ^ a b Walters, Ray (20 June 1982). "PAPERBACK TALK; Wits of the 80's". New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  14. ^ a b Smith, David A. (2021). Cowboy Presidents: The Frontier Myth and U.S. Politics since 1900. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-6848-7.
  15. ^ Herman, Tom (14 April 2013). "It's Easy to File for an Extension". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  16. ^ Kelly, John F. (12 September 1982). "Spoofing M.B.A for big bucks". The Baltimore Sun.
  17. ^ Hockstein, N.G.; Gourin, C.G.; Faust, R.A.; Terris, D.J. (27 March 2017). "A history of robots: from science fiction to surgical robotics". Journal of Robotic Surgery. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  18. ^ Carroll, John (10 August 2011). "Skyline's Freund slams FDA's tougher stance on drug programs". Fierce Biotech. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  19. ^ Young, Robin (11 February 2022). "HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO GET EXCLUSIVE REIMBURSEMENT STATUS?". Orthopedics This Week. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  20. ^ "SEC Schedule 14a". Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  21. ^ a b Al Idrus, Amirah (22 October 2020). "Pfizer snaps up antibiotics maker Arixa and its oral Avycaz follow-up". Fierce Biotech. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  22. ^ Satyanarayana, Megha (16 December 2018). "The hunt for new antibiotics grows harder as resistance builds". Chemical and Engineering News. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  23. ^ "SEC Schedule 14a". sec.gov. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
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