BIOTECH GOLDENBOY
PAGE 12 OF 12

"We met in Paris for a week and spent every day just putting the baby in the carriage and walking through all the streets."

     "We also didn't want to spend time raising money every year. We could have raised just five or six million and that would have been enough for this year and a part of next year. But it's tremendously distracting. Every time you have to raise money, it's going on a road show. You have to take your eye off managing programs and meet with investors non-stop for several weeks and it stretches into months. It's not in the best interest of the company to be distracted every nine months."
     Now that fundraising is done, Kuo spends the bulk of his time on general management, including reviewing and guiding the progress of existing projects.
     "We typically have a meeting on Fridays, which is a slower day, where we try to review everything that's happening with the clinical programs and some problems that have arisen. That's probably what I spend the majority of my time doing."
     To function as an effective biotech CEO, Kuo devotes a third of his time to poring over trade journals and clinical reports to keep abreast of industry developments and an eye out for promising compounds. The rest of his time is spent maintaining key outside relationships and responding to investor questions.
     Kuo typically gets in before eight each morning and often stays well past seven each night. That's when I can really get things done," he says.
     But he no longer comes into the office on weekends, preferring to spend an uninterrupted weekend at his Sutton Place townhouse. If he does have to spend a Saturday reading paperwork, he prefers to do it at home. That's because Discovery Laboratories is no longer the only startup Kuo is nurturing. Last September 11 Gigi gave birth to daughter Emmeline Susan Pelaez Kuo.
     "She has her first tooth," Kuo says with unabashed pride. "She learned to roll over. She rolled over twice already. She can stand up if you support her." Thankfully Emmeline has already settled into a sleep schedule anyone might envy.
     "Our baby doesn't wake up [in the middle of the night]. She sleeps at 10 o'clock and gets up at 6."
     Weekends are often spent exploring Manhattan en famille. Being an avid magazine reader, Kuo often finds himself leading his family over to the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble.
     "One of the things I think is great about being able to support myself is I can order all those magazines which I used to like to read before and go and read in the library," he says. "The ones I don't order, I just go there and read."
     The Kuos collect antiques. When they're over at Kuo's parents' home, Kuo likes to garden.
     The Kuos are inseparable if there is half an excuse to spend time together. During his last business trip to Europe in the fall of 1996, when Kuo found himself in Paris again at a charming Left Bank hotel, he had Gigi grab the baby and hop a plane.
     "We met in Paris for a week and spent every day just putting the baby in the carriage and walking through all the streets. We had been there before about a year and a half ago but we were staying around the opera house at the Grand Hotel. This time was a whole different part of the city. We just walked around all day for 12 hours with the baby. We brought all the stuff to change her. She was still breastfeeding so we'd stop in cafes and my wife would feed her. We'd just walk all throughout the city just having a wonderful time, seeing the different people, meeting them and stopping in little shops and having tea in different places. That's really what we've evolved into doing, enjoying traveling a lot more."
     Kuo still considers himself a pretty fair tennis player, though that too is now confined to weekends. He sometimes plays Steve Kanzer, who's a good player, or others in the office. During a trip to Japan Kuo realized with horror how golf-crazed the Japanese are.
     "I'm thinking they're going to come out here one time and we'll take them golfing and I'm gonna be horrible." The fear of future humiliation has driven Kuo to frequent New York's driving ranges.
     Dr Kuo, MD retains an active interest in medicine. He's even considering becoming a baby doctor in 10 or 20 years when he tires of being a biotech executive. It isn't something he would do for the money, though.
     "All my friends in medical school who told me not to go into business are just now finishing their training and the market for those kinds of jobs is horrible. It's a complete reversal of fortune for them. They're having difficulty finding jobs or they have jobs and the salaries aren't what they'd like. My brother is continuing his training in the belief that more training is actually better. So are a lot of my friends."
     Kuo doesn't see himself as being wedded to any field.
     "There's a lot of very interesting things to do. I went into medicine, did medicine and accomplished what I wanted to do. With business, I feel I'm starting to get there and hopefully accomplish something. I have this idea of myself doing a lot of different things, maybe writing books, maybe directing a movie. I look at guys like George Miller who also started out as a physician and did Road Warrior. I think to myself, 'There's no reason why I can't do any of this. I have some of the same story ideas they have. I don't know if it's as good but I think I can do this stuff. It's not completely outside my skill range. Even if I can't do it, let me try for year or two and let me see how I do. If I can't make it, that's okay, there's no big loss.'" [End]

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