Dinesh Patel, PhD'78, and Brothers Establish Fellowships Honoring Their Parents

Seven years into a successful career as a drug delivery scientist in the pharmaceutical industry, Dinesh Patel, PhD'78, decided to walk away from a guaranteed paycheck in order to start his own company.

"From the time I earned my PhD, my goal was to run my own business," he says. "I didn't know what business it would be, but I knew I would do it." To make sure he didn't forget, he posted a note on his bathroom mirror where he would have to see it every day. The note's bold declaration: "I will start my own business by 1985."

And in 1985, Patel did just that: co-founding Salt Lake City-based TheraTech Inc. with Bill Higuchi, his former Michigan College of Pharmacy PhD advisor. The company became a pioneer in the development and manufacture of innovative drug delivery products, establishing strategic alliances with major pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, Roche, and SmithKline Beecham. In 1992, Patel took the company public, and in April 1999, he sold it to Watson Pharmaceuticals.

That was the first in a series of companies he either founded or co-founded, grew, and sold.

Then in 2000, Patel's career took a different track: that of managing director and founding partner of vSpring Capital, an early stage venture capital fund based in Salt Lake City. This year, Patel and his vSpring partners reached a new milestone with $200 million under management.

"The best thing about being in the venture capital business is that you are involved with lots of different companies," Patel says. "For 14 years, my focus was mainly one company at a time. Now I'm involved with medical device/diagnostic companies, drug discovery companies, drug delivery - and because my partners are in the IT sector, we have a lot of technology companies. The other thing I like about the venture capital business is the management teams I get to work with. The entrepreneurs are all very hungry, aggressive, so I am working with the kind of crowd that suits me just fine."

Family Values

Ask Dinesh Patel where he gets his entrepreneurial drive and he invokes the memory of his late father, Chhotubhai Patel.

"My father had his own accounting practice, bookshop, and a printing press when I was growing up in Kabwe, Zambia," remarks Dinesh. "I was born into a family where entrepreneurism was part of the fabric of our life. In fact, my older brother, Kiran, who is a cardiologist, and my younger bother, Pradip, an MBA, are also entrepreneurs. Three children, three entrepreneurs," Patel laughs.

Chhotubhai and his wife, Savitaben, also gave their sons other life lessons that would become a permanent part of their world view: the importance of education as a means to selfimprovement, and the concept of sharing your own good fortune with others. "As far back as I can remember, my parents were strong believers in giving back, in sharing, in helping others," Patel says. "My father's constant motto was 'service to mankind.'

Even when my parents immigrated to Africa and had very little money, they were always helping people in whatever ways they could. I do not think my parents ever turned down a request for help. When my father retired from business in Zambia and he and my mother returned to India, they did the same thing there. They created a lot of charitable organizations. My brothers and I just grew up learning from our parents' example."

In honor of their parents and consistent with the values they taught, the three sons of Chhotubhai and Savitaben Patel have made a gift of $1 million to the College of Pharmacy to establish two fellowships in their parents' names.

"When I came to Michigan, I hardly had any money, but I was fortunate to receive a very generous fellowship as well as some support from my parents," Patel explains. "Unlike what students face today, I managed to graduate without any debt."

Patel credits his Michigan education with giving him the tools to succeed, first in the pharmaceutical industry, and later as an entrepreneur.

"Getting a good education in the pharmaceutical sciences at Michigan, and having a degree from an institution internationally recognized for quality, set the foundation for my progress within industry."

Teamwork is another pervasive theme that runs through the Patel sons' decision to establish two fellowships at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.

"We are successful because we work together as a unit," Dinesh says. "When one of us needs help, the others support him. I was able to leverage my early success in business to help my brothers found and build one of the largest HMOs in Florida. They, in turn, have helped me, many times. In a very real way, we all owe a portion of our success to Michigan, even though neither of my brothers attended U-M."

The brothers' partnership continues to bear wondrous fruit. Among the many philanthropic causes the Patel sons support is a 50 -bed charity hospital and a school in the small village of Mota Fofalia, India. "That's the place our father was born," Dinesh explains. "It was his wish to have a hospital there, so we fulfilled that dream."