ALUMNI PROFILE
These days, the founder and head of Biosensors International Group is making it big with a metal tube-like device that, at its smallest, measures 10 millimeters long and two millimeters in diameter. Called a drug-eluting stent (which slowly releases a drug to block cell proliferation), this vessel-popping item looms large in cardiovascular treatment. Biosensors’ stents are considered innovative because of a durable polymer coating that exits the body after the drug is delivered. “This is a country that allows anyone willing to work hard to be successful — or to at least take a shot at it,” says Lu, 56, whose company is based in Newport Beach, Calif., but traded on the Singapore stock exchange. Lu fell in the love with the United States in 1969 while attending the University of California at Berkeley during his undergraduate studies and vowed to stay. A Thunderbird MBA, 21 years and three companies later, he was able to make that happen permanently by forming Biosensors. Armed with money from the buyout of his former employer, Lu has been on the fast track ever since he started in 1990. Biosensors now has offices in seven countries and employs 450 workers. Annual revenues are about $60 million. The company got a boost in 2003, licensing its technology to Guidant Corp. for $100 million, and has become a major player in Asia. Biosensors is looking to crack Europe and is seeking regulatory approval for its devices in the United States. “We see a tremendous future,” he says. “But it’s not something that happens overnight. By David Schwartz. Reprinted from Thunderbird Magazine, Fall 2007. |  |
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Growing up in Japan, Yoh-Chie Lu '74 had big plans for his future. He would make his mark as an engineer, building massive bridges that would make his parents proud. Yet it would actually be a tiny device that would be the stuff of his dreams.
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