Michelangelo of commercialization

His eyes widen, his head tilts just a bit and he lets loose with a giant exhale as he leans back in his chair.

Dinesh C. Patel seems to have trouble grasping the enormity of the question.

Sure, he's often called a businessman, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. But what about those other descriptions, such as "the father of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals in the Mountain West region"? Terrence Chatwin, director of the Utah Engineering Experiment Station, said it just as succinctly this spring. "He is," Chatwin said, "the Michelangelo of commercialization."

"That's one thing I'm not very good at, which is to say, 'Jeez, I'm great at this or that,' " Patel said during a chat at vSpring Capital, of which he is a founding partner and managing director. "I do what I do. I'm good at certain things and not good at certain things, and that's how it is."

While quick to discount his contributions as the work of many people, Patel nonetheless has demonstrated he is good at helping companies — the ones he founded, funded or guided — get started.

"There are always so many issues," Patel said. "If you go into an established company, it's the 'same-old, same-old,' because everything's been established. You're not going to do that much different if somebody goes and runs GE today. You're not going to change a whole bunch.

"But when you're starting a company, it's like you have this lump of clay in front of you, and you can shape it in whatever form you want. With an established company, you'll tweak it a little, but you're not going to shape it. There's a big difference."

By his own reckoning, this Michelangelo figures his fingerprints can be found on anywhere from 50 to 100 companies. They can be found directly on TheraTech, a company he co-founded in Salt Lake City, took public and sold 14 years later for $350 million. Another company, Salus Therapeutics Inc., was sold for $30 million a mere four years after it was started. They also can be found at his current business, Ashni Naturaceuticals Inc., one of eight companies he's founded or co-founded.

Patel's prints also can be found on the companies he's helped fund. Before springing vSpring in mid-2000, he already had been an angel investor in more than 20 biotech and technology companies.

And along the way, he's picked up a slew of honors and awards, along with those grandiose nicknames.

"Sometimes the myth becomes big," he laughs when asked about his "father of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals in the Mountain West region" designation.