Gil Van Bokkelen is a geneticist and a biotech chief executive with a blue-collar attitude about his work.

"Measure twice. Cut once," says Van Bokkelen, CEO and co-founder of Cleveland-based stem cell company Athersys Inc.

It's advice he learned working construction for three years in his teens. This wasn't a summer job. Van Bokkelen, 49, had to support himself when he left home at age 16 following a fight with his dad.

Those years living on his own as a young man shaped Van Bokkelen's view on business. Instead of raising hundreds of millions in hopes of taking one miracle drug to market, Van Bokkelen is hoping his 15-year-old company's patented stem cell technology will someday treat stroke victims or help people with damaged hearts or patients with leukemia. On Wednesday, Athersys said its stem cell technology helped heart attack patients in an early human study. Pfizer Inc. is investing in the company to study inflammatory bowel disease. That deal could pay Athersys as much as $105 million if the companies succeed in developing a treatment.

Van Bokkelen's strategy is to research multiple uses of stem cells with the help of partner funding. "Multiple shots on goal," is how Van Bokkelen, a hockey fan, describes the research approach. Van Bokkelen benefits from drug partnerships with Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and specialty drugmaker Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc. These companies provide research dollars and resources that Van Bokkelen says allow him to focus on product development rather than fundraising. For a 40-employee publicly traded company years away from making a profit, that's a relief (last year, the company lost $15 million on $2 million in revenue).

Portfolio.com: You struck a research agreement with Pfizer earlier this year. What's the significance of such a deal for a small company like Athersys?

Van Bokkelen: "In addition to the capital, there's several years of research support. On top of that, they actually have a very big team of people. Pfizer has, as you'd expect from a major pharmaceutical company, a lot of institutional experience and a lot of institutional memory. They have expertise and knowledge we don't have as a smaller company."

You actually cut your R&D spending last year. Is that because of the dollars and resources flowing in from the partnerships?

"Part of it was because we were coming off the throes of a pretty major upheaval in financial markets. In the wake of what was going on in fall of '08 and continuing into '09, we made a set of prudent decisions. We didn't reduce headcount. We focused on what we wanted to do near term. We're in a much stronger position now."

Are there any downsides to partnering with big companies?

"You've got to make sure you pick the right partner. We wanted to partner with a company that is a good cultural fit. The danger of working with a big company is it can actually slow you down. The upside is it can bring resources. The progress we made in the first half of the year shows me the cultural fit between the teams has been phenomenal."

Do you have any advice for entrepreneurs in the medical-research area?

"If you want to go into the business of developing new medicines, you have to have a marathoner's mentality. This isn't a sprint. You also have to be intellectually honest with yourself. Plan even if you don't have the answers. For executive types, you really have to understand how the capital markets work and how best to work with investors. Being the dominant owner is not the way to grow. There are going to be multiple stakeholders over periods of time."