Webinar | Oct 30 2012 | 8:00am-9:00am PDT, 11:00am-12:00pm EDT, 15:00-16:00 GMT
http://www.wuxiapptec.com/pdfs/Driving%20Innovation%20Speaker%20Bios%20FINAL.pdf
New avenues to innovation, productivity and efficiency are vital in bringing new medicines for global, unmet medical need. Open innovation, open access platforms, and partnership among industry, academic, non-profits, venture capital community and service providers are forming the foundation to a new collaborative biopharma ecosystem and creating novel paradigms of R&D. In this live webinar open to life science professionals globally, WuXi brings together key thought leaders and players to examine how this ecosystem may impact future of R&D, and how it may benefit patients.
Round-Table Discussions with:
Greg Verdine, Venture Partner of Third Rock Ventures, Erving Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, Founder of Warp Drive Bio
Mike Varney, Senior Vice President of Small Molecule Research, Genentech
Joe Vacca, Senior Vice President, Early Success Sharing Partnerships, WuXi AppTec
Chris Chen, Senior Vice President and CTO, Biologics Services, WuXi AppTec
Moderated by Richard Soll, Senior Vice President of Integrated Services and Head of Corporate Alliances, WuXi AppTec
Registration: Complimentary and open to life science professionals globally. Click Here to Register.
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=519131&sessionid=1&key=318D26E4180C5A471C9F2AE9D17DA4A4&sourcepage=register
Speaker Biographies
Mike Varney, Senior Vice President of Small Molecule Research, Genentech. Dr. Michael D. Varney received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1980 from UCLA, and his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from CalTech in 1985 under the direction of Professor Robert E. Ireland. He was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University where he studied bioorganic chemistry under the direction of Ronald Breslow from 1985-1987. In 1987 he went to Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. as a medicinal chemist. In 1997 he was given responsibility for the Research organization as the Corporate Vice President, Head of Research. As part of the acquisition of Warner-Lambert by Pfizer, Mike became the Vice President of Drug Discovery Pfizer Global Research and Development, La Jolla. In 2005 Dr Varney moved to Genentech as the Vice President, Small Molecule Drug Discovery. Dr Varney is now the Senior Vice President, Research and Small Molecule Drug Discovery where he is responsible for all Small Molecule activities as well as the Research portfolio and budget. Dr Varney is also the Co-Chair of the Early Stage Portfolio Committee which is responsible for the management of all aspects of Genentech’s Development portfolio. Dr Varney’s research has focused on the use of combinatorial chemistry and protein structural information in the design of therapeutically relevant drugs in the fields of Viral Diseases, Diabetes, Obesity, Oncology, Ophthalmology, Immunology and Neurodegeneration. Outside of work, he likes swimming and biking with his wife and two children, playing his guitar and nurturing his palm tree collection.
Greg Verdine, Venture Partner of Third Rock Ventures, Erving Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, Founder of Warp Drive Bio. Professor Gregory L. Verdine’s research interests lie in the emerging area of chemical biology. He and his co-workers study biologic processes underlying control of gene expression and preservation of genomic integrity. He has made major contributions to the understanding of DNA damage recognition and repair by base-excision DNA repair enzymes. He has also pioneered new and powerful approaches for the discovery of unconventional bioactive ligands for targets that have proven difficult to target with conventional drugs. Professor Verdine received his B.S. degree in 1982 from St. Joseph’s University and his Ph.D. in 1986 from Columbia University (under Koji Nakanishi and Maria Tomasz). Following an NIH postdoctoral fellowship with Chris Walsh at M.I.T. and Harvard Medical School, he joined the Harvard University Department of Chemistry in 1988. Verdine was promoted to Full Professor in 1994 and was also named Harvard College Professor in 2000. In 2002, he was named the Erving Professor of Chemistry, the longest-established endowed professorship at Harvard. Professor Verdine has received numerous honors, including the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the Nucleic Acids Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Cruikshank Award of the Gordon Research Conferences, the Nobel Laureate Signature Award of the American Chemical Society (with Anirban Banerjee), and the Fifth Annual AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research. He has founded numerous drug discovery companies, including Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, Eleven Biotherapeutics, and Warp Drive Bio. He is a Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures, at which he leads the initiative in next-generation therapeutic modalities.
Joe Vacca, Senior Vice President, Early Success Sharing Partnerships, WuXi AppTec. Dr. Vacca is Senior Vice President of Early Success Sharing Partnerships atWuXiAppTec. Most recently prior to WuXi, Dr. Vacca held two positions within the Merck Research Laboratories Chemistry organization as Vice President of Chemistry at the Kenilworth, New Jersey site and as the Global Head of Structural Chemistry until his retirement from Merck in Nov. 2011. Dr. Vacca has over 100 publications and patents and is the holder of many awards including a Merck Directors Award given by the Merck board of Directors (1998); PhRMA Discoverers Award (1999); Intellectual Property Owners "National Inventor of the Year Award" (1997); European Inventor of the Year (non-EU nation) (2007); ACS "Award for Creative Invention" (1999); and was named a Merck Research Laboratories Presidential Fellow in 2008. Dr. Vacca was inducted to the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2012.
Dr. Chris Chen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Biologics, WuXiAppTec. Dr. Chris Chen is currently Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Biologics Service at Wuxi AppTec Co Ltd, leading biologics service business in China. He obtained his dual bachelor degrees of chemical engineering and automation at Tsinghua University, Beijing China and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware, US. He then gained valuable experience in process development, manufacturing, technology transfer, process validation, quality, and regulatory in the US, where his previous assignments include director and manager positions of bioprocess development, technical service, and pilot plant operations at Lilly and Merck. He later joined Shanghai Celgen Biopharmaceuticals as Chief Operating Officer, successfully developed a high-titer high-quality commercial process for biosimilar Enbrel, and obtained regulatory approval for the program in China. The biosimilar Enbrel was launched in China Sept 2011. In 2009, he co-founded Shanghai Kanda Biotechnology Co Ltd and served as Chief Executive Officer. In two years Kanda became a leading mab CRO/CMO provider in China, successfully completing two Chinese IND-enabling CMC projects on behalf of clients. He is proficient at mab development strategy, high titer cell culture development, large-scale mammalian cell culture, and regulatory and quality of mab manufacturing. Overall he has participated in developing 11 mab programs in US and another 10 in China. He chaired multiple conferences in biochemical engineering and mab development in US and China and is frequently invited to speak at multiple conferences.
Richard Soll, Senior Vice President of Integrated Services and Head of Corporate Alliances, WuXi AppTec. Dr. Richard M Soll is SVP, Integrated Services and Head of Corporate Alliances at WuXiAppTec, a Shanghai headquartered and New York Stock Exchange listed (NYSE: WX) premium provider of pharmaceutical R&D services across. In this capacity, Dr. Soll has advanced more than 30 programs across major target classes and therapeutic indications from hits into lead opitmization campaigns, giving rise to clinical candidates on behalf of WuXi customers in pharma and biotech. In addition, Dr. Soll heads Corporate Alliances Office at WuXi, oversees strategic partnering activities with our global partners in designing and executing creative collaboration models to maximize R&D productivity and shorten time to market. Previously, WuXi, Dr. Richard Soll was CSO and VP, R&D at TargeGen where he led innovative clinical-stage R&D programs for isoform-specific PI3K inhibitors as therapeutics for inflammation, respiratory disease and cancer, muti-targeted src/VEGF inhibitors as the first topical kinase inhibitors AMD, and highly selective JAK2 inhibitors for the treatment of myeloproliferative disorders, the latter leading to the acquisition of TargeGen by Sanofir. Dr. Soll founded the chemistry department 3-DP as VP, Chemistry. Dr. Soll spent 10 years at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and trained as a synthetic chemist at Dartmouth and Harvard. Dr. Soll’s drug discovery and development experiences has led to more than 7 drug candidates entering and advancing the clinic for infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and ocular indications up to pivotal trials. Dr. Soll’s patent and publication record in peer reviewed journals has produced more than 100 patents and papers. Dr. Soll has been an SAB member to biotechs and advisor to entrepreneurs.