Mark Famiglio this week can be found hob-nobbing with movie stars in his capacity as president of the Sarasota Film Festival. But on any given week, you might find the business mogul bringing an orphan drug to market, negotiating with World of Beer about a new location in Bradenton or countless other ventures. As of January, Famiglio held some level of ownership over 43 separate companies.

The New College of Florida grad has spent decades in the Sarasota area running companies like Cambryn Biologics, which right now is working now on a drug created to manage and treat clotting factor deficiencies, advanced wound healing and biosurgical hemostats. Famiglio’s work navigating the product through approval with the Food and Drug Administration forced him to miss the Sundance Film Festival this year. “It requires focus and attention,” Famiglio says of the approval process. “There are periods when it’s a mad dash, a 50-yard run, and then there are times when it’s a marathon.”

As for the festival, a point of pride this year for Famiglio is the launch of a new Screen Writers Colony in Sarasota similar to a successful effort at the Nantucket Film Festival, where Famiglio sits on the board. He has seen first hand what works best and what does not with the New England project, and hopes to see even greater success here with the effort. It could be seen as Famiglio’s grand finale, as he plans to retire as president this year. But then again, “I said that I was retiring two years ago, and that didn’t happen.”

Read more about Famiglio in this month’s issue of SRQ: The Magazine.

Follow our wall-to-wall coverage of the festival at SRQBacklot.com