Alfred E. Mann dies; inventor of rechargeable pacemaker, inhalable insulin was 90

Alfred E. Mann, a pioneering investor and philanthropist whose companies have developed breakthrough medical devices including the first rechargeable pacemaker and an artificial retina that allows the blind to see, died Thursday. He was 90.

A prolific entrepreneur, Mann over the course of seven decades founded 17 companies in fields ranging from aerospace to pharmaceuticals to medical devices. He sold many of those companies over the years, amassing a fortune that once topped $2.2 billion in 2007.

Matthew Pfeffer, chief executive of Mann-backed company MannKind Corp., confirmed that Mann died Thursday in Las Vegas, where the entrepreneur had spent the majority of his time over the past several years.

Pfeffer said he was about to get on a plane to Las Vegas to talk to Mann on Thursday when his assistant called to tell him not to come. Pfeffer later got a call from Mann’s son, confirming that his father had died.

“It’s very sad. He was an inspiration to me and everyone at MannKind,” Pfeffer said.

He said he did not know the cause of Mann’s death.

Mann over the past few weeks resigned from the board of two of his companies: MannKind, a Valencia, California, firm that developed an inhalable form of insulin; and Second Sight Medical Products Inc., a Sylmar, California, company that makes an electronic retina that gives rudimentary sight to patients blinded by certain eye diseases.

SEE PHOTOSRecent notable deaths

Those resignations came little more than a year after he stepped down as MannKind’s chief executive after a 12-year run.

Keith Markey, an investor in MannKind and Second Sight, said Mann told him about a year ago that he planned to exit the two firms.

“He expressed an interest in being able to spend more time with his family. He knew what he wanted to do,” Markey said.

Mann was a prodigious polymath who also designed his own 17,000-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills atop Mulholland Drive. The home featured a koi pond that stretched from the backyard into the home, separated by a Plexiglas wall that automatically rose up and down depending on the weather.

An admitted workaholic, Mann was thrice divorced, though he stayed with his fourth wife, Claude, for more than a decade until his death.

“I know I will be first in his heart, but not his first priority,” Claude told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “His first priority will always be work and doing what he does best.”

Even up to his death, Mann was hard at work.

“That’s a common thing - I walk into the room, he’s working, and he wants to finish something before we can talk,” said David Hankin, chief executive of Valencia’s Alfred Mann Foundation, who saw Mann a few weeks ago. “That is very much Al Mann.”

Mann was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1925. His father, an English immigrant, was a grocer; his mother, a Polish immigrant, was a singer and pianist.

He graduated high school at 16, served in the Army Air Corps during World War II — though he didn’t see combat duty — then settled in Southern California, where he earned a physics degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

In 1956 he was hired by the U.S. military to help improve guidance systems technology for missiles. He later won a contract to design solar cells for spacecraft. Those opportunities led him to found his first two companies, Spectrolab Inc. and Heliotek Corp., both of which he sold in 1960.

In 1969, he turned his attention to medical devices after researchers at Johns Hopkins University asked Mann if he could help create a longer-lasting pacemaker.

In his biggest deal, Mann sold MiniMed, a company that developed insulin pumps to treat diabetes, to medical device giant Medtronic for $3.3 billion in 2001.

But one of Mann’s most recent ventures, MannKind Corp., has been one of his least successful. The company’s only product, an inhalable insulin called Afrezza, was once seen as a potential blockbuster drug.

Sales have been disappointing since Afrezza hit the market a year ago, prompting French drug giant Sanofi, which had an agreement to market the drug, to drop the product. That’s left MannKind without a marketing partner and with only enough cash to survive through the middle of this year.

The company’s struggles mark a rare stumble for Mann, who spent a decade and nearly $1 billion of his own cash to develop Afrezza and get it approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Mann for years said he intended to leave most of his wealth to charities, including his foundation and engineering institutes he created at several universities, including the University of Southern California. His stakes in MannKind and Second Sight were about $233 million combined Thursday.

“When my success exceeded my expectations, I began to think of a way to return to society what it has given to me,” Mann told the Times in 1998.

In a 1998 profile in the Times after he donated $100 million to USC, colleagues praised him for his wide-ranging contributions.

“He’s literally working on making the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk,” said Jeff Greiner, then president of Advanced Bionics, a Sylmar firm founded by Mann that makes cochlear implants. “That’s a pretty fantastic legacy if it comes to pass.”

© 2016, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.