Aug. 4--It's a classic good news/bad news conundrum for Indianapolis.

Jerome Peribere, a real comer in the city's life-sciences community, is packing off to Philadelphia after leading Dow AgroSciences through five years of tremendous growth. He walked the city's life-sciences talk and had key leadership positions with BioCrossroads and the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that Peribere's successor is another Dow lifer with more than a decade of executive experience in the local headquarters. We'll see whether Antonio Galindez emerges as a force in the life-sciences movement here -- but here's hoping he does.

"We'll be reaching out to him very soon," said Mark Miles, who leads the group of area CEOs that guides BioCrossroads and other business development efforts.

"Dow AgroSciences is at the top level for the number of highly educated, highly paid employees that are an important cohort in the city," Miles said.

The company won't divulge wage data, but about 600 of the 1,200 local employees are engaged in high-level agriculture research, jobs that typically command six-figure salaries. Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co., had $4.5 billion in sales last year, a figure that puts it behind just Eli Lilly and Co. and Roche Diagnostics in revenue.

Pesticides and seeds are big business -- and high-tech. Revenue has more than doubled since Peribere took over in February 2004, in large part because Dow AgroSciences picked up seven seed companies. But Dow's emphasis now is on research. It recently hired 100 new researchers and will hire another 100 to fill a new 80,000-square-foot lab due this time next year.

Dow AgroSciences spent $10 million more on research here even as its parent slashed R&D spending by $35 million elsewhere. Dow's willing to invest because AgroSciences represents nearly 16 percent of the company's revenue -- a figure that's likely to increase as more crops are grown on fewer acres worldwide.

That's why Peribere's participation in BioCrossroads and CICP was critical. Miles knew Dow AgroSciences' success lent credibility to the region's claim as a life-sciences hotbed, so when he took over CICP in 2006, he worked hard to boost Peribere's participation.

Peribere will leave for Philadelphia to take over Dow's Advanced Materials division, which is getting an infusion of new assets from a recent acquisition of Rohm and Haas.

Galindez isn't well-known around here, but he's followed a path very similar to Peribere's. Both started in sales and worked through the ranks to lead the high-performing AgroSciences business. Both worked through postings in Europe, where they felt very comfortable; Peribere hails from France, and Galindez from Spain.

Galindez arrived here in 1997, and people who have worked closely with him are pleased that he was tapped to follow Peribere.

In another nod to their European heritage, both men are off for much of August and were unavailable for comment.

The handoff will occur when they return. Galindez will take charge of 5,500 employees worldwide, and he'll work from the biggest office in the company's 192-acre Northwestside complex.

That's news, certainly, but the bigger story will be whether he spends time outside the office working on the city's life-sciences effort like Peribere did.

6:30 a.m. news every Tuesday and Thursday. He can be reached at (317) 444-6081 or at john.ketzenberger@indystar.com.

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