Kansas City, Mo. ? Former Health Midwest chief executive Richard W. Brown has been formally named to top leadership positions at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

The Stowers Institute announced Friday that Brown is now co-chairman of the board of directors of the nonprofit organization, along with institute co-founder and mutual fund magnate James E. Stowers Jr.

Brown also will be leading the effort to commercialize discoveries achieved through the work of the institute, which was formed by Stowers, a cancer survivor, to conduct basic biomedical research aimed at finding cures for diseases.

“From the institute’s inception, Dick Brown has been instrumental in evolving our long-term strategic vision,” James Stowers, founder of Kansas City-based American Century, said in a news release. “I am enormously pleased that he will continue to face the challenges before us.”

Brown became president of Health Midwest in 1993. He joined the Stowers Institute board of directors in 1995 and has served on the institute’s executive committee since 2000.

“I consider this a wonderful opportunity to serve a magnificent organization led by a team of extraordinary people,” Brown said.

At Stowers, Brown will help lead an organization at the forefront of Kansas City’s effort to become a national center for life sciences. Brown, 57, assembled the area’s largest hospital system at Health Midwest before orchestrating the sale of the nonprofit system to HCA Inc., a for-profit company based in Nashville, Tenn., in a $1.13 billion transaction last year.

After the sale of Health Midwest, the Stowers Institute acknowledged that Brown would be joining the organization in early 2004 but did not say in what capacity.

In addition to being co-chairman of the Stowers Institute, Brown also has been appointed chairman, president and chief executive officer of two related organizations, Stowers Institute for Resource Development Inc., a fund-raising organization, and Biomed Valley Corp.

The Stowers Institute for Medical Research is seeking to establish Biomed Valley Corp. as a nonprofit entity to control a for-profit entity called Biomed Valley Discovery Inc. Biomed Valley Discovery would commercialize discoveries made by the research partners of Biomed Valley Corp.

The Stowers Institute for Medical Research also announced Friday that president and chief executive officer William B. Neaves has extended his contract through mid-2009.

“Sharing leadership responsibilities with (Brown) now is an enormously welcome opportunity and enables me to extend my time here indefinitely with more confidence than ever,” Neaves said.

The Stowers Institute noted in its release that James Stowers first approached Brown in 1987 to discuss mutual interests in health and medicine. The institute said Brown helped develop the mission and strategy of the organization.

The Stowers Institute is east of the Country Club Plaza at the former site of Menorah Medical Center, which moved to Overland Park in the 1990s. Brown was the head of Health Midwest when it sold the Menorah property to the Stowers Institute for $4.9 million in 1995.

Admirers of Brown have described him as a brilliant strategist who led Health Midwest to become the area’s largest system of hospitals and other health-related entities.

Detractors criticize Brown as the man in charge when Health Midwest took on excessive debts in a 1990s buying binge, leading to financial atrophy. By the time Health Midwest was up for sale, it could not meet its existing debt obligations.

Brown also has been criticized for fostering contentious relations with nurses and physicians, for relying too much on high-cost consultants, and for the amount of compensation he received at Health Midwest. During his Health Midwest tenure, he was at times paid more than $1 million annually and was compensated with a severance package of $7 million when the health system was sold.

The Stowers Institute did not disclose how much Brown will be paid in his new positions.