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Ernesto Bertarelli's father groomed him from an early age to take over the family pharmaceutical business. "As a child, I remember him sitting me down at his desk and telling me, 'One day you'll have to sit in my chair. You'll have to take the decisions.' That makes a big impression on a child," recalls Ernesto, 37. The family firm, Serono, has a long and odd history: it was founded in Rome in 1906, and its best-selling product was long a fertility drug derived from the urine of postmenopausal women, including Italian nuns. Bertarelli's grandfather took it over after the war, and his father Fabio moved it to Geneva in 1977 and began developing new products, including a human-growth hormone. When Genentech came out with a rival based on recombinant-DNA technology, Bertarelli Sr. began funding his own biotech research. That led to the development of a multiple-sclerosis (MS) drug called Rebif, which last year accounted for 39% of Serono's sales.
While Ernesto was at Harvard in the early 1990s, his father sent him company papers so he could keep abreast of what was happening back home. That smoothed the transition when Ernesto took over as CEO. He has streamlined the organization, ending an unwieldy division between operations in Italy and Switzerland, and in 2000 he listed Serono on the New York Stock Exchange. Most riskily, he steered Rebif through a contentious approval process in the U.S. that involved taking on an already authorized rival treatment by Biogen in a head-to-head clinical trial--and winning. Biogen had enjoyed a temporary monopoly in the U.S. for its Avonex product under the FDA's "orphan drug" program, meant to encourage research into treatments for uncommon diseases. Serono broke the monopoly, proving by trial that its drug was more effective. Bertarelli's priority today is to fill Serono's pipeline with new drugs so it isn't so dependent on a few products. To leverage and expand its MS expertise, Serono is partnering with other firms to create treatments for associated ailments that afflict MS patients.
A big advantage of Serono's being a family company, Bertarelli says, is that "I'm a strong reference for management. They know where the decisions are coming from." He adds, "People are judged by results, not that you come from three or five generations." Still, being the majority shareholder as well as CEO allows for some freedoms that would be unthinkable at any nonfamily company. Bertarelli spent most of the past six months in New Zealand preparing for the America's Cup, which he won for landlocked Switzerland with his yacht Alinghi. Although he kept in touch by phone, e-mail and videoconference, managing a company from the other side of the world was evidently a challenge, and Bertarelli put in place a deputy CEO--who is not a relative--to help out.
Benetton EDIZIONE HOLDING
It built its wealth on the colorful knitwear of the retail chain bearing its name, but this PONZANO, ITALY, family is now widely diversified in catering, sporting goods and toll roads
Annual Sales: $7.7 billion