Charles Hamner named First Flight’s 2024 High Flyer Champion of Innovation

Charles E. Hamner, Jr., Ph.D., a former president and CEO of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and a longtime advocate for life sciences in the state, has received the 2024 High Flyer Champion of Innovation from the First Flight Venture Center.

Hamner received the award at First Flight’s annual High Flyer Awards Luncheon on Friday, Nov. 1, at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary. The annual event brings together entrepreneurs, industry leaders and innovators to honor excellence in the North Carolina ecosystem.

Mary Musacchia, chair of the First Flight board of directors, presented Hamner with the award. First Flight is the state’s first science-focused business incubator and innovation hub located in Research Triangle Park.

“I was asked, ‘How many lives do you think Dr. Hamner has touched?’” Musacchia told the packed ballroom. “Thinking of his lifetime body of work, I instinctively said, ‘How many stars are in the sky? How big a ripple can you create when you toss a pebble into the pond?’  

“Well, Charles Hamner was not a pebble but a boulder tossed into the North Carolina pond that set off tidal waves that are still moving outward today,” Musacchia said.

'Biofather of NC'

Hamner, who has come to be known as the “Biofather of North Carolina,” began his career as an academic researcher. With his Ph.D. in biochemistry and a D.V.M. from University of Georgia, Musacchia said that in the 1960’s and 70’s Hamner conducted research at the University of Virginia in biochemistry, including work on the co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and reproductive biology. “Charles was one of only three researchers in the world working on invitro fertilization at its very inception,” she said. 

During his tenure at UVA, Hamner was doing translational research “before it had a name,” Musacchia said. While maintaining his academic post he worked with pharmaceutical companies including Merck, Upjohn, A.H. Robins, and F. Hoffmann-LaRoche. His work led to five major therapeutic compounds and 22 pharmaceutical products, of which 15 became over-the-counter medicines, including Robitussin. “It was during these years the biotech industry was born and branded,” Musacchia said. “Charles, as always, was in the lead.”

Hamner joined NCBiotech as its second president and CEO in 1988 and stayed until he retired in 2002. He has said that he felt it was “an opportunity to put my ideas to work creating a new industry.” 2024 is NCBiotech’s 40th anniversary.

Musacchia said that Hamner’s approach to creating the biotech industry in N.C. was holistic, combining some fundamental ideas: educate the public and the legislature on biotech’s importance to their lives, support N.C.’s universities, provide life sciences education for middle and high school students to seed the future, create associates degrees in biotech at community colleges, cultivate a biotech-ready workforce, develop wet lab space and professional support networks, and provide start-up capital for innovators and entrepreneurs. 

Hamner also led the effort to erect a showcase building with conference space for the home of NCBiotech.

Recruiting biotech companies

“Finally, he wanted to recruit biotech companies, such as Biogen, KBI Biopharma, BASF, and Bayer,” Musacchia said. “Charles’ plan worked. North Carolina has a world-class biotech industry.”

In a tribute video shown during the event, NCBiotech’s president and CEO Doug Edgeton was one of several industry leaders who spoke about Hamner’s influence on N.C.’s life sciences industry.

“(Charles) went out and brought back a lot of really big companies who found North Carolina the right place at the right time in their development,” Edgeton said. “You see the evidence of that all around the state now.”

Norris Tolson, who was one of NCBiotech’s leaders after Hamner and now heads up special projects and economic development at the Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce, wrote a letter to Hamner congratulating him for the Champion of Innovation honor.

“You are truly one of those rare North Carolinians who ‘labor quietly in the vineyard’ without fanfare or headline seeking,” Tolson wrote. “Your contribution to NC citizens and to the Biotech world are far too many to count or measure. Lives have been changed thanks to your work, and all of us owe you our gratitude and admiration. You surely have mine.”  

Past recipients of the Champion of Innovation award include Fred Hutchison, Andrew Schwab, and former N.C. governors James G. Martin and James B. Hunt. 

Also during last week's event, Plantd received First Flight’s 2024 High Flyer Company Award, which celebrates the outstanding contributions of a start-up company. The two other finalists were Windlift and DMC Biotechnologies.