Frank Baldino Jr., 57, founder and chief of biotech firm Cephalon

Frank Baldino Jr. was a biotech survivor. He started Cephalon Inc. in 1987 and developed it from zero to an expected $2.7 billion in annual revenue. He was still running the company after 23 years.

Mr. Baldino, 57, who had been on medical leave from Cephalon since August, lost his battle Thursday evening with leukemia. He died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The charismatic founder and chief executive of the region's largest independent biotechnology company was remembered by colleagues, university leaders, and the philanthropic world as a great guy, bigger than life, and extremely generous.

Many consider the Dutch-born biochemist Hubert J.P. Schoemaker to be the father of the local biotechnology industry. With three colleagues, he started the Philadelphia region's first biotech company, Centocor Inc., in 1979.

Frank Baldino was a close second.

"This is a guy who started in a cubicle in an incubator with a book of how to write a business plan and took the company to a multibillion-dollar organization," said Bruce Peacock, who worked for Mr. Baldino from 1988 to 1996, when Peacock left to head Orthovita Inc. in Malvern.

"Across the nation, he's one of the very few guys who has done it from scratch to a commercial, large, successful company," said Peacock, now a venture partner in SV Life Sciences in Boston and chief business officer of Ophthotech Corp. in Princeton.

"He helped dozens of other entrepreneurs get companies started. Frank was just a force," Peacock said. "He was a scientist by training, but developed an acumen in finance, sales, and marketing as well. It's a sad day."

Brenda D. Gavin, managing partner of Quaker Bio Ventures in Philadelphia, said she personally has known "fewer than a handful of people" who took a company from the science, through venture funding, public financing, and product approval to profitability.

"Believe me, they are so rare," Gavin said. "Typically what happens, the guy who's the founder is not the same person who can go forward and take it all the way.

"The great thing about Frank," Gavin said, "after he had the personal success with his company, he was instrumental in getting the life-sciences greenhouses started and funded in Pennsylvania, particularly the local one. He's on the board there. He really tried to give back to the community."

The "greenhouses" in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh are economic-development incubators for life-sciences jobs and businesses.