BioCrossroads Awards Indiana Life Sciences Leaders

INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — At the eighth annual Indiana Life
Sciences Summit today, BioCrossroads recognized the late William A. Cook, the
founder of Bloomington-based Cook Group and one of the world’s great
entrepreneurial success stories, with the August M. Watanabe Life Sciences
Champion of the Year award. Cook Group President Kem Hawkins accepted the award
as a tribute to his friend and colleague.

Now the largest privately held medical device company in the world, the company
began humbly in the Cook’s apartment in 1963, crafting catheters, needles and
wire guides by hand and connecting directly with physicians for sales. A
constant innovator and medical pioneer in the field of minimally invasive
medicine, the company grew rapidly, and now has more than 15,000 products on the
market in the areas of interventional radiology and peripheral intervention,
urology, critical care medicine including antimicrobial-impregnated catheters,
gastroenterology, general surgery and many others. With annual sales of
approximately $2 billion, Cook Group now employs about 6,500 Hoosiers and total
global employment exceeds 10,000.

“With uncommon vision, compassion, and persistence on the part of everyone who
has ever worked here, Cook Group has grown into a generous and caring global
company. An unrelenting commitment to preserving and protecting the future of
our company has guaranteed that the organization will go on to serve our
employees, our communities and our patients for many years to come,” said
Hawkins. “At Cook, the patient always comes first. From the start, this company
has been a true pioneer and its innovations have had a dramatic effect that
changed the course of medical treatment. We are pleased, and Bill would have
been honored, to receive this recognition of our company’s achievements named
after one of his closest friends and colleagues, Gus Watanabe.”

“Bill started from humble beginnings, and then went right on to build major
portions of a whole economy,” said Dr. Craig Brater, Dean of the Indiana
University School of Medicine and Chairman of the Board of BioCrossroads. “He
has had an enormous influence for the good in bettering our state’s science and
math education, improving the health of his community, and advancing the cause
of historic preservation. We lost a great man and true friend earlier this year,
but Bill’s legacy, including his company the Cook Group, will benefit Hoosiers
and patients around the world for generations to come.”

The Watanabe Award is presented annually to an individual who has made a
signature contribution to the growth of the state’s life sciences sector through
innovation and unparalleled achievement, and who personifies the emerging face
of Indiana’s life sciences industry.

Also at today’s conference, Anne Shane, a longtime community leader and one of
the original organizers of the collaboration that ultimately became
BioCrossroads, received the first BioCrossroads Catalyst Award. The
BioCrossroads Catalyst Award honors an individual who has been an accelerator
and activator in Indiana’s life sciences industry — one who has helped to bring
the sector together, and further helped to sustain it through targeted,
strategic and collaborative energy and efforts.

In February 2012, BioCrossroads will celebrate its tenth anniversary. Shane
played a pivotal role in the original organization of the initiative, gathering
critical support from leaders across the public and private sectors as well as
from academia and the scientific community. Later at BioCrossroads, Shane’s
efforts focused particularly on developing science and mathematics education
programs offering the promise to prepare Indiana’s next generation with the
skills required to work and advance in some of the state’s best and highest
paying jobs. In this role, Shane spearheaded the formation of the Indiana
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (ISTEM) Resource Network,
managed today by Purdue University. Shane helped secure nearly $10 million in
funding from the Lilly Endowment, the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, the
State of Indiana and other stakeholders to further I-STEM’s efforts in training
hundreds of teachers and thousands of students across the state.

“Anne’s early and insistent vision, along with her strong community ties and
superb organizational skills, were what made the difference in moving
BioCrossroads from a good idea into a functioning and productive initiative that
has gone on to do considerable good work for our community and our state,” said
David Johnson, BioCrossroads CEO. “From the beginning, Anne saw the potential,
and made sure that others saw it and helped to build it too. I can think of no
one who has made more of a difference in bringing the right people together for
the right reasons, or who has played such a critical role in helping Hoosiers to
have better jobs today, and have the chance to be better educated for jobs
tomorrow in Indiana’s promising life sciences sector,” Johnson said.

Shane also organized a collaboration with the University of Notre Dame to bring
the National Math and Science Initiative Advanced Placement Strategies program
to Indiana to accelerate the number of high school students taking and passing
math and science AP courses.

“Working with the extraordinary team of people who remain at BioCrossroads and
with the leadership of Gus Watanabe, Indiana has built one of the most credible
and effective economic cluster initiatives in the country. I was honored to play
a small part in that and accept this award with gratitude,” said Shane.

About BioCrossroads

BioCrossroads (www.biocrossroads.com) is Indiana’s initiative to grow, advance
and invest in the life sciences, a public-private collaboration that supports
the region’s research and corporate strengths while encouraging new business
development. BioCrossroads provides money and support to life sciences
businesses, launches new life sciences enterprises (Indiana Health Information
Exchange, Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, BioCrossroadsLINX,
Datalys Center and OrthoWorx) expands collaboration and partnerships among
Indiana’s life science institutions, promotes science education and markets
Indiana’s life sciences industry.

SOURCE BioCrossroads