Body of billionaire investor recovered at Trout Lake

NEWPORT – Divers recovered the body of wealthy investor and businessman Daniel Reiner in Trout Lake Saturday, after his family reported him missing the day before.

Trout Lake is on private property near Fertile Valley Road, Pend Oreille County Sheriff Glenn Blakeslee said. Blakeslee said the death was not suspicious.

“(Reiner) went swimming and just didn’t come back,” Blakeslee said.

The body was recovered by divers about 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31, Blakeslee said. Prosecutor Dolly Hunt, who is also the elected coroner, said an autopsy has been scheduled.

“We assume all deaths are suspicious unless evidence shows otherwise,” Blakeslee said. After speaking with the family on the scene, deputies decided the death was not suspicious, he said.

The case came in as a missing person case at first Friday, about 8 p.m., Blakeslee said. Deputies came and spoke to the family at the scene but it became too dark and the search was continued the next day.

Saturday morning, deputies took the Sheriff’s Office boat to the lake and searched about 8 a.m. Cadaver dogs from Spokane were brought up to search for a body later Saturday morning, Blakeslee said. They gave a general indication of a location and Spokane County divers were able to locate Reiner’s body, which was recovered about 3 p.m.

Reiner, who is described as a billionaire in some media reports, started Stemcentrx, a bio firm he sold in 2016. Stemcentrix worked on a set of experimental drugs that targeted cancer stem cells. It was sold to AbbVie for $5.8 billion in cash and stock, plus another $4 billion in prospective milestone payments, AbbVie reported in a 2016 news release.

“AbbVie will acquire Stemcentrx for approximately $5.8 billion in cash and stock. AbbVie will pay approximately $2.0 billion of the transaction value in cash and fund the remaining portion with stock. In addition, Stemcentrx investors are eligible to receive up to $4 billion in cash for additional, success-based milestone payments for the achievement of certain regulatory and clinical developments,” according to the AbbVie news release.

According to Pitchbook. com, a website that tracks global capital markets, Reiner is an angel investor, an investor who provides seed-money for early-stage startups, usually in exchange for ownership equity if the idea takes off.

“Mr. Daniel Reiner is an Angel Investor,” Patchbook reported. “He served as Board Member at Vodori. He served as Chairman at Stemcentrx. He is a Co-Founder of the company. He is also an Angel Investor. He has founded, been a significant investor in, and/or served as a director of more than a dozen companies in the public and private sectors, spanning multiple markets including biotechnology, telecommunications, optics, computer peripherals, manufacturing, timber, and real estate. He was formerly Chairman and CEO of the telecommunications equipment company World Wide Packets. He was an investor, executive, and board member for VaxGen, a spin-out from Genentech, which was executed on a Phase III clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine. He holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and has undertaken graduate studies in genetics and biochemistry at Wayne State University and the University of California, San Diego.”