Greater Boston
Experienced drug discovery & development leader with a demonstrated history of delivery & impact in the pharmaceuticals industry. Skilled in leading groups that successfully contribute to building and progressing the drug discovery and development pipelines for patients. Successful in collaborating and building strong partnerships with therapeutic area partners across the organization and in bringing innovative research contributions from key opinion leaders to strengthen research conducted by pre-clinical research and translational sciences teams in the pharmaceutical research and development organization.
Accomplished R&D leader with 25+ years of experience driving pharmaceutical innovation and research pipeline delivery across metabolic, dermatology, neuroscience, and oncology portfolios. Successfully led and mentored large, diverse international teams across Cambridge, San Diego, and Tokyo, spanning disciplines such as Drug Safety, DMPK & Modeling, Comparative Medicine, Genetics, Systems Biology, Imaging, and Biomarker Sciences. Extensive experience in forging strategic partnerships with discovery and therapeutic area teams, advancing novel target identification, developing technology platforms for emerging scientific needs, and shaping translational strategies from discovery through IND submission. Experienced executive of research organizations, contributed to portfolio development and organizational growth, with a strong focus on talent development, mentorship, and aligning scientific teams with therapeutic priorities. Adept at managing complex portfolios and partnerships, navigating dynamic budget strategies, and fostering environments that drive innovation and effectiveness.
o Leadership of and guidance to 350+ scientists (PhD, DVM, MD, non-PhD levels) at Cambridge, San Diego and Tokyo in the disciplines of Drug Safety, DMPK & Modeling, Comparative Medicine, Nonclinical Regulatory Writing, Strategic Operations, Genetics and Systems Biology, Imaging, and Bioanalytical and Biomarker Sciences and Technologies. Many of these teams are involved in generating key pharmacological data and their interpretation in partnership with various program teams. o Strategic partnership with all discovery units in research (Discovery Performance Units (DPUs), therapeutic area teams in development (Therapeutic Area Units (TAUs), and global teams across the organization to progress and deliver the pipeline. These partnerships extend from novel target identification, developing technology platforms for emerging scientific needs to developing translational strategies. o As a member of research leadership executive team, contributed to the development of gastro-intestinal, dermatology, neuroscience, and oncology portfolios, from targets to their IND submission and translational strategies. o Creating an environment of mentorship for the scientific teams, with emphasis on talent development, organizational growth and effectiveness with clear alignment to therapeutic area priorities. o Managing complex portfolios, internal as well as external partnerships with ever-changing budget strategies.
Roles: Head, Translational Sciences; Head, Bioinformatics, Translational Sciences; and Head, Computational Biology & Genetics, Precision Medicine & Computational Biology o Leadership of and guidance to about one hundred+ employees at Framingham and Cambridge in the disciplines of Bioinformatics, Multi-Omics, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Biomarker Sciences with deep expertise in drug discovery and early development as well as partnership with various sites in France & Germany. o Collaborate with the Head of Research, heads of Therapy Area Units (Oncology, Rare and Neuro, Genomics Medicine, Immunology & Inflammation (Dermatology)), cluster heads, and other cross-functional leaders across the organization to evolve, refine and execute Sanofi’s scientific strategy for delivering research portfolio and objectives. o Contribute to external and internal innovation scientific boards and initiatives to align with digital, artificial intelligence and analytical strategies of the multiple groups within the organization (DMPK, Safety, Integrated Drug Development and Translational In-vivo Models). o Focusing on talent development for organizational growth and providing opportunities for leadership development through various programs for organizational effectiveness. o In the dermatology indication space, specifically partnered with immunology and inflammation teams to help with target identification and translational strategies. o Delivering Translational Sciences research to therapeutic areas on target identification and validation, building and progressing drug discovery pipeline, biomarker discovery and patient selection through multiple best-in-class technologies, tools and platforms (Genomics, Proteomics, Lipidomics, Genetics, Bioinformatics etc)
Delivering Translational Sciences research to therapeutic areas on target identification and validation, building and progressing drug discovery pipeline, biomarker discovery and patient selection.
*Senior Director, Computational Biology (CB) (2016 -2019 ) Roles: Senior Scientific Director in Computational Biology; Target Sciences Therapy Area Coordinator for Metabolic, Renal, Muscle, Cardiovascular & Immunology (Dermatology); US & RTP Computational Biology Group Leader; Investigator, Principal Scientist and Analyst in Bioinformatics o Held roles of increasing responsibility in providing support to metabolic, cardiovascular, and dermatology discovery units and oversight of the group that supported all discovery units in the US with strategic partnership with UK groups o Partnered with therapeutic areas to identify, develop, and deliver a portfolio of targets and compounds as well as co-led drug discovery initiatives focused on metabolic and immune-mediated dermatological conditions. o Initiated and managed biomarker and back-translational collaborations to advance the portfolio by building clinical collaborations with therapeutic area partners to collect patient samples and study the molecular basis of disease. o Drove external innovation through multiple business development collaborations and Oversaw computational biology research projects supporting the GSK pipeline and target sciences across several therapy areas. o Provided scientific and strategic guidance to a team of senior and junior scientists, supporting multiple therapy areas from target identification through pipeline progression and biomarker development for various indications. o Emphasis on mentorship and talent development to create an organization that is ready for future needs and opportunities. o In the Dermatology space specifically, led efforts to identify targets from public data integrated with novel data generated from clinical samples in the areas of psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and hidradenitis suppurativa. Participated in the PSORT consortium and various Genetics Consortiums in organizational efforts to identify targets.
*Application Scientist - BioKnowledge Libraries & Drug Matrix scientific support (2002) *Scientific Curation Editor - Editor of Proteome BioKnowledge Libraries (2001 - 2002) *Scientific Curator - Proteome BioKnowledge Libraries (2001)