Former BI-LO CEO Jon Wilken exited the grocery business more than a decade ago and in the intervening years has pursued several entrepreneurial ventures, including his latest, HS Pharmaceuticals.
Now the former “grocery store guy” has moved into biotech. Wilken sat down with UBJ to talk about how he went from overseeing foodstuffs to backing cutting-edge research with HS Pharmaceutical.
How did you move from grocery store manager to CEO?
At first I flunked out of college, went back and got an associate degree. After I completed a retail management program, I became the youngest store manager in the Chicagoland area in the supermarket business at 22. Everyone except the baggers were older than me. I was recruited to Greenville by a startup company to open Family Mart in 1977. We opened two in Greenville and one in Albany, Ga. I became a regional manager for that company and later worked for Kash ‘n’ Karry in Florida and later in Arizona and California. In 1988, I came to work for BI-LO as an executive vice president and left [as CEO] in 2002.
What came after leaving BI-LO?
I became a partner in The Point and purchased the property off I-85 with two others. Our first project was the Cracker Barrel that moved from one side of Woodruff Road to the other.
What was the biggest success for The Point?
We convinced Whole Foods to come to Greenville before Charlotte. With my grocery background, I was convinced people would drive further than the typical one to three miles to a Whole Foods. That jump-started the whole project.
Now you are CEO and co-manager of HS Pharma. What does this newest venture involve?
Several years ago I ran across a salve that had amazing healing properties. A doctor helped isolate the molecule that’s responsible and learned that it can be broken down into nanoparticles to treat wounds, infections and potentially cancer. The “silicate-based therapeutic” can activate the immune system and we think it has applications for infections like MRSA, cancer treatment and veterinary use. I partnered with Vincent Sordello and Rusty Rohrbaugh to create HS Pharma as a research and development company.
What is unique about the HS Pharma compounds?
Most treatments or drugs are organic, but ours is inorganic. For cancer treatment, we think it can stimulate the body’s immune system response without the ravages of chemotherapy. With our compound, you just get flu-like symptoms. We are beginning our third melanoma [treatment] study in Arizona.
What is the next step for HS Pharma?
We are working with Jonathan Powell, an M.D. and Ph.D., head of cellular and molecular science at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK, which is the equivalent of the U.S. National Institute of Health. He is helping to create a stabilizer solution for the silicate nanoparticles so it can have a shelf life of years. He recently filed a patent for the solution. HS Pharma is also sponsoring a Ph.D. student at Cambridge who is working with Powell. If the results of our next study come back as good as we anticipate, we are going to move next year into phase one human trials.
Are there plans to expand?
Our intention is not to build a big company, not to hire a bunch of employees or build a corporate headquarters downtown… We want to build value in our assets and sell them to somebody who can spend the additional money to complete the studies and get it to people who need it. That is my goal in life. People need this stuff and we’ve got to get it fast-tracked through the system as fast as we can. We feel like we have a responsibility, to put it plainly.
Describe a time when you thought you would fail. Did it happen?
When we were searching for someone who could break down our identified molecule to nanoparticles, a complicated process. We visited scientists in Germany, Oxford, MIT, Cal Berkley, Stanford, and they all said, “We can’t do that.” Then we met Stephen D. Kinrade, Ph.D., of Lakehead University in Canada [research chair in aqueous silicon chemistry], who connected us with Dr. Powell.
Who outside your professional circle influences you?
Jack Leggett, Clemson baseball coach, is a great pal and motivates me a lot and gives me words of encouragement. When things were uncertain [with HS Pharma], he sent me a motivational message every morning. I’d even remind him and he would come up with something.
What was the most rewarding business mistake you ever made?
It could have been a big mistake. We didn’t listen to the focus groups and went with the agency on an ad campaign pitched for BI-LO, but people loved it: “Our produce is better because of Walter.”
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I hope I’m on a beach in the Caribbean. Hopefully I’ll be reading about this wonderful science that people are using around the world that’s helped people. If that could happen, that could be pretty doggone rewarding. This [HS Pharma] could be the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life – it’s just that important to me.
What keeps you up at night?
Keeping this project going, all the things that need to be done. For people who get bad medical diagnoses, I think about those people. The science world goes so slow and it takes so much money, it gets discouraging. You get very emotionally tied to this project –it could impact global health.
