Richard B. Hollis

Richard B. Hollis is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Holonis, Inc., a San Diego-based software company. Hollis had previously founded Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego-based pharmaceutical company, in 1994.

Richard B. Hollis
Born
San Mateo, CA, U.S.
EducationSan Francisco State University (B.A.)
OccupationBusinessman
EmployerHolonis, Inc.
TitleCEO of Holonis
Websitewww.holonis.com

Biography

Richard Hollis was the fifth of nine children, born to Edward Hollis, a multilingual American military interpreter in the Pacific during World War II, and Grace Borras Hollis. His parents raised their family in San Mateo, California. He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1977 with a degree in psychology.[1]

Career

Hollis began his career in product sales with the healthcare supplier Baxter Travenol (today Baxter International). Subsequently, he was hired by the startup IMED Corporation which had developed intravenous pumps, where he rose from sales to management.[2]

From 1986 to 1990, during the early days of the biotechnology industry, he worked for Genentech and was involved in the product launches for Protropin (human growth hormone) and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a drug for dissolving clots in people with strokes or heart attacks.[2][3] Hollis worked briefly for Instromedix, a medical device company that sold a wearable heart monitor, and in 1991 joined Bioject as executive vice president of marketing and sales.[2] He was made chief operating officer in 1992.[4] As COO he drove a redesign of the company's lead product, the Biojector, a handheld device employing compressed carbon dioxide to shoot vaccines through the skin.[5]

Hollis founded Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 1994 and took it public in 1997 through a reverse merger, serving as founder, chairman, and chief executive officer.[6][7][8] The company licensed some of its founding technology from Patrick Prendergast, an Irish scientist who became CSO; the "Eden" portion of the company name was derived from Prendergast's research facility, Edenland.[9]

At its founding, Hollis focused the company on immune modulation as a strategy and identified analogs of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), as promising drug candidates; the initial indications for these drug candidates were infectious diseases, especially those caused by hepatitis and HIV, and malaria.[10][6] In 1999 Hollis-Eden licensed intellectual property from Roger Loria, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, that covered the DHEA analog drug candidate 5-Androstenediol that was later called Neumune.[11] These compounds turned out to have the ability to regulate the immune system and to drive the body to make more blood cells and proved promising in models of radiation poisoning. As a result, the company began to pursue that indication as well.[12] The shift to radiation poisoning was driven partly by pressures in the HIV market to make drugs available more cheaply, making the antiviral business less attractive.[6] However, questions of how to test drugs for radiation poisoning in humans, how to deal with the FDA, and who would buy the drug, were all unclear at that time.[6][13]

The US government had a biological defense program since the 1950s, but after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, it began investing more heavily, culminating in the 2004 passage of the Project Bioshield Act.[14] Hollis personally lobbied the NIH, Congress, and the president to get the bill passed and to have the government fund development of Neumune and agree to stockpile it. As part of that effort he made many media appearances one on 60 Minutes.[15][16][17][13][18] His lobbying and media appearances turned to fierce criticism of the government in 2007 when Neumune was dropped from Project Bioshield, leaving Hollis-Eden's business without funding or a market, and causing its shares to lose a third of their value; the company cut 20% of its workforce soon after.[19][20]

Hollis was fired for cause by the company in 2009; the cause was not disclosed.[16] The company was renamed Harbor Biosciences in 2010.[21]

In 2010 Hollis formed a new company, Holonis, with a group of younger internet entrepreneurs.[22] It built an integrated web and social media communications platform for small and medium-sized businesses intended to make a business' entire digital marketing and analytics effort more simple.[23] They launched the platform at the 2015 South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.[24][25]

References
  1. "Amendment No. 1 to Form 10-K". www.wikinvest.com. United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  2. "Press release: Medical Device Executive Joins Bioject". December 19, 1991.
  3. Richard B. Hollis Biography at The Wall Street Transcript Page accessed August 17, 2016
  4. Bioject Press release: Bioject Appoints Chief Operating Officer. April 24, 1992
  5. "A Shot In The Arm For Sales?". BloombergView. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  6. L.J. Sellers (May 1, 2005). "It's All About Immunity". Pharmaceutical Executive.
  7. Seth Lubove for Forbes. Sept 6, 1999 Small world, ain't it?
  8. Initial Acquisition Corp Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1996
  9. Kathy Brock for the Portland Business Journal. Apr 6, 1997 Biotech firm gets funding for virus drug: Hollis-Eden is raising $25 million for promising HIV, hepatitis research
  10. Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Form 10-K405 for year ended 12/31/1999
  11. Hollis-Eden 10-K Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2003
  12. Hollis-Eden 10-K Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Form 10-K405 for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2000, filed March 30, 2001
  13. Terri Somers (July 21, 2004). "Project BioShield to give small S.D. firms a market". www.sandiegouniontribune.com. The San Diego Union-Tribune.
  14. Milton Leitenberg. Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat. Strategic Studies Institute, 2005
  15. Crabtree, Penni (June 20, 2004). "Selling Safety". The San Diego Union Tribune.
  16. Terri Somers for the San Diego Tribune. March 24, 2009 Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals dismisses CEO and founder
  17. "Can BioShield Effectively Procure Medical Countermeasures That Safeguard the Nation? Testimony of Richard Hollis" (PDF). Committee on Homeland Security. April 18, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 7, 2014. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  18. Daniel Schorn (January 27, 2006). "60 Minutes: The Worst-Case Scenario: Is America Ready For A Nuclear Terrorist Attack?".
  19. Terri Somers (March 9, 2007). "Hollis-Eden seeks answers on bio drug rejection". www.sandiegouniontribune.com. The San Diego Union-Tribune.
  20. "Emerging Drug Developer: Hollis-Eden". FierceBiotech. 2007.
  21. Bruce V. Bigelow for Xconomy. February 24, 2015 Former Biotech CEO Richard Hollis Unveils Web Startup Holonis
  22. “Richard Hollis - Founder, Chairman and CEO of Holonis.” IdeaMensch, 26 May 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.
  23. "Entrepreneur Aims to Create New Commerce Ecosphere Based on Engagement Principles". blog.enterpriseengagement.com. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  24. Chamberlain, Lauryn Chamberlain. SMB Support Systems Player Holonis Preps Its Debut at SxSW. GeoMarketing, 6 Mar. 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.
  25. "The Five Hottest Trends Coming Out of SXSW 2015 - The Social Media Monthly". The Social Media Monthly. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
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