Bonanzino takes medical research CEO post

Longtime Spokane business leader Anthony Bonanzino is the new CEO of the Institute for Systems Medicine, a nonprofit effort that hopes to develop cutting-edge medical research.

Bonanzino retired earlier this year as CEO at contract pharmaceutical company HollisterStier in north Spokane. He’d held that position for 18 years.

The ISM board is asking Bonanzino to help develop a strong business plan and move toward financial independence.

Initially discussed among local officials in 2004, the group created a planning authority in 2007 and had hoped by now to have hired a chief scientific officer who would recruit researchers and find grants to develop medical products. The region’s hospitals would be a benefit as the projects would plan clinical trials to test their new medicines or devices.

That initial plan, however, was too ambitious for Spokane, said Dave Holmes, an Avista executive who has been “loaned” to the ISM for the past year.

Under Bonanzino, the ISM will look for a combination of local support and outside grants and will scale back its budget goals.

It’s also revising its mission. Instead of recruiting outside researchers, the ISM will first find ways to fund up to three area-based health research projects that Bonanzino said are sitting, ready to go. One would involve extensive and long-term data gathered by WSU in connection to heart disease.

Said Bonanzino: “Part of the problem the ISM had, if we want to call it a problem, was the institute got a bit ahead of itself.” Instead of the initial target of raising $100 million, the ISM will be looking for a much smaller operating budget, he added.

Key organizations that have backed the ISM, in addition to Avista, are Washington State University, Gonzaga University, Spokane County, Providence Health Care and Empire Health Services. Bonanzino said one objective will be adding other groups to that list.

Another goal is for ISM to hire a staff of three or more positions and ultimately operate from its own building.

Later this year Bonanzino plans to appeal for ISM funding from the newly created Health Sciences and Service Authority, whose purpose is to promote bioscience projects that will lead to economic development. Money for those projects would come from county sales taxes.

Bonanzino, 56, said he doesn’t intend to remain in the job more than 12 to 16 months, and will mostly work less than 30 hours a week. He continues spending time with his son managing their document storage and archiving firm, Century Archives Northwest.