Confirmed Speakers, Panelists, Chairs, and Moderators:
- Nancy Chang, Ph.D., Chairman and Sr. Managing Director, Asia, OrbiMed
- John M. Dunn, J.D., Executive Vice President of New Ventures, Biogen Idec Inc.
- Gregory Heath, Ph.D. Sr. VP & General Manager, Diagnostics Business Unit, Illumina
- Steve Kaldor, Ph.D., President and CEO, Ambrx
- Ge Li, Ph.D., CEO, WuXi AppTec
- Diego Miralles, M.D., Head and Chief Medical Officer, J&J PRD West Coast
- Bob More, M.B.A., General Partner, Frazier Healthcare Ventures
- Richard Neale, Chief Business Officer, Scripps Translational Science Institute
- John Oyler, CEO, BioDuro
- Lewis Shuster, CEO, Shuster Capital
- James Tong, M.D., Ph.D., CFO, Chief Business & Development Officer, Tianyin Pharmaceutical, China
- Xiaodong Wang, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing China
- Troy Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., President and CEO, Intellikine
- Steve Yang, Ph.D., Vice President, Head of R&D, Asia at Pfizer
- Guo-Liang Yu, Ph.D., President, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Epitomics
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Nancy Chang, Ph.D., Chairman and Sr. Managing Director, Asia, OrbiMed
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Nancy T. Chang, Ph.D. is currently Chairman and Sr. Managing Director for Asia at OrbiMed Advisors, a health care Investment firm since 2007. Previously, Dr. Chang served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Tanox, Inc., until it was sold in 2007. Dr. Chang co-founded Tanox, a public company created to address asthma, allergy, inflammation and diseases affecting the human immune system. From 1986 to 1992, Dr. Chang was an Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in the Division of Molecular Virology. Between 1981 and 1986, Dr. Chang was employed by Centocor, Inc., serving as the Director of Research, Molecular Biology Group. Dr. Chang serves on the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank in Houston and BioHouston, Project Hope and the Board of Visitors of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Chang also serves on the Boards of Charles River Laboratories and a number of private biotechnology companies.
Dr. Chang received a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard University.
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John M. Dunn, J.D., Executive Vice President of New Ventures, Biogen Idec Inc.
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John Dunn is an Executive Vice President of Biogen Idec and heads the company's internal corporate venture group. Biogen Idec New Ventures was formed to make equity investments in emerging biotech companies developing products and technologies of strategic interest to Biogen Idec. The corporate allocation to this initiative is now $200 million. Mr. Dunn was previously Senior Vice President and General Counsel of IDEC Pharmaceuticals. He led IDEC’s legal department and served as a member of the company’s senior management team. Prior to joining IDEC, Mr. Dunn had been a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and co-leader of the firm’s Biotech, Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Industry Team.
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Gregory F. Heath, Ph.D., Senior Vice President & General Manager, Diagnostics Business Unit, Illumina
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Greg Heath is responsible for managing Illumina’s emerging diagnostics business, specifically overseeing the development of diagnostic content for the BeadXpress system, and ultimately for the Illumina’s sequencing platform.
Greg has more than 20 years of experience in the diagnostics field, including launching the first FDA-approved microarray for diagnostic use. Greg joined Illumina from Roche Molecular Systems where he held a number of senior executive positions including head of clinical genomics, senior vice president of global product marketing, senior vice president of global marketing and business development, and most recently, senior vice president of global business. In this last role, Greg was responsible for new product development and global marketing activities for the infectious disease, blood screening, genetics and oncology portfolios. Greg was also responsible for the PCR licensing, industrial business, and business development programs. From 2000–2003, Greg was head of business development and licensing for the diagnostics division of F. Hoffman La Roche in Basel and led the strategic planning, business development, and licensing activities of the molecular diagnostics, centralized diagnostics, applied science, near patient testing, and diabetes care business areas. Prior to this, Greg held numerous roles in marketing and business development with Roche Diagnostics’ U.S. affiliate.
Greg graduated with a B.S. in psychology from Illinois State University and an M.A. in experimental psychology from Hollins College. He earned a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University and completed his post-doctoral work in behavioral pharmacology at Michigan State University. Outside of his work at Illumina, Greg has also published more than 25 articles in science and business and participates in various internal and external leadership programs.
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Steve Kaldor, Ph.D., President and CEO, Ambrx
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Prior to joining Ambrx, Inc., Dr. Kaldor served as President and CSO of Takeda San Diego Inc., the US Discovery Research Center for Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He instigated and led the March 2005 $270MM acquisition of Syrrx Inc. by Takeda that resulted in the creation of Takeda San Diego. Dr. Kaldor ran Syrrx, a privately held, structure-based drug discovery company, as its President and CSO from 2003 -2005. Syrrx built a robust portfolio of metabolic diseases and oncology clinical candidates during his tenure including SYR-322 (Alogliptin), a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor for the treatment of diabetes now in Phase III clinical trials. Prior to joining Syrrx, Dr. Kaldor gained over 12 years of drug discovery and development experience at Eli Lilly and Company, as both a researcher and Director with line management responsibility for groups of up to 270 people. He received his formal education in organic chemistry at Harvard University, (Ph.D., 1989) and Columbia University, (B.S., 1984). Dr. Kaldor is the co-inventor of multiple compounds that have advanced into the clinic including ViraceptTM, a marketed HIV protease inhibitor.
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Ge Li, Ph.D., CEO, WuXi AppTec
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Dr. Ge Li is Chairman and CEO of WuXi AppTec, a NYSE listed world-class contract research organization providing global biopharma industry with productivity improvement and capital efficiency through a complete range and fully integrated discovery and development services from target identification to commercialization.
Dr. Ge Li received his B.S. in Chemistry from Beijing University in 1989 and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University in 1993. He was one of the founding scientists of Pharmacopeia (NASDAQ: PCOP) where he held increasing scientific and management responsibilities, and co-developed three compounds to clinical evaluation. In 2000, Dr. Ge Li moved back to Shanghai to found WuXi PharmaTech and has been Chairman and CEO since. With his vision and leadership, WuXi AppTec evolved from a small start-up within ten years to one of the world's most reputable pharmaceutical R&D service organizations with 3800 employees in China and 400 in the United States. WuXi PharmaTech was included in the "Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific" List for six consecutive years, ranked 8th on the Fast Company "World 50 Most Innovative Companies" list, Frost & Sullivan Award for "Best in Class Outsourced R&D in Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology". WuXi PharmaTech went public on New York Stock Exchange in 2007, acquired AppTec in 2008 (name change to WuXi AppTec), and announced combination with Charles River in May 2010.
Dr. Li’s vision, leadership, and contribution to global biopharma industry have won him numerous awards and honors, including "The 60 Most Influential People during 60 Years Pharmaceutical Development in China", Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year China", "Distinguished Entrepreneur Award" from The State Council of China, and was featured on the cover page of Red Herring.
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Diego Miralles, M.D., Head and Chief Medical Officer, J&J PRD West Coast
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Diego Miralles is the Head of External Innovation for the Immunology therapeutic area in Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Research & Development. In this role, he is responsible for expanding the Immunology R&D network through external partnerships to increase research/development capabilities and the immunology portfolio. Diego graduated from the University of Buenos Aires in 1986. From there he completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN (1987-1990) and his Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Cornell University-New York Hospital (1990-1992). He was Attending in Charge at The AIDS Clinical Trial Unit, Beth Israel Medical Center, NY, 1993. Diego was also on the faculty at Duke University, Durham, NC, from 1993-1998. He continued his academic appointment and clinical HIV practice at Duke from 1993 through 2005.
Diego joined Triangle Pharmaceuticals as Associate Director, and then Director, Team Leader, DMP-450, 1998-2000. He was then with Trimeris as Director/Senior Director, Clinical Trials, Clinical Team Leader T-1249, 2000-2005. He joined Tibotec/Johnson & Johnson in Belgium in June 2005, as VP, Global Clinical Development where he oversaw the regulatory approval of Prezista and Intelence and was on the company Board. Diego has also been Head of the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development (PRD) Discovery site in San Diego, California since August 2008.
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Robert More, General Manager, Menlo Park
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Mr. More joined Frazier Healthcare in 2008 as a General Partner and is a member of the firm’s biopharma and medical device investment teams. Prior to Frazier Healthcare, Mr. More was a Partner with Domain Associates, having joined the firm in 1996 as a Kauffman Fellow and becoming a Partner in 2000. From 1997-1998, Mr. More served as the Chief Operating Officer of Small Molecule Therapeutics, a Domain portfolio company subsequently purchased by Morphochem AG. And from 1992 to 1995, Mr. More was with Pharmacia Biotech in sales. Prior to joining Pharmacia, Mr. More held a research position at Somatogen, a company developing a recombinant blood substitute that was subsequently bought by Baxter. While attending business school, Mr. More worked with MedVest, an early-stage venture group in Washington, D.C.
Mr. More managed successful investments in and served on the boards of ESP Pharma (acquired by Protein Design Labs, Inc.), Proxima Therapeutics (acquired by Cytyc Corporation), Onux Medical (acquired by C.R. Bard), NovaCardia (acquired by Merck), Esprit Pharma (acquired by Allergan) and IntraLase (acquired by Advanced Medical Optics, Inc.).
Mr. More serves as an advisory board member for Montagu Newhall Associates, Okapi Ventures, The Medical Industry Group of the NVCA and The Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center. He is also a past founding board member of the Kauffman Fellows Program.
Mr. More received his MBA from the Darden School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and a BA from Middlebury College.
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Richard Neale, Chief Business Officer, Scripps Translational Science Institute
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Richard Neale, B.Sc., LLB, MBA is the Chief Business Officer at STSI and was recently appointed the Corporate Vice-President of Research Operations at Scripps Health. Mr. Neale brings extensive business and operational management experience from within the biopharmaceutical industry to our organization. Prior to his appointment at STSI in 2008, he held the position of Sr. Vice President North America at Galapagos, a Belgian based bio-pharmaceutical company. Prior to Galapagos, he was the Corporate Vice President of Business Operations and Alliances at Discovery Partners International and previously held executive level positions with both Systems Integrated Drug Discovery Company and Novopharm Biotech (now Viventia). Rick's experience has greatly facilitated the connection of STSI with a large number of genome science, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic companies in San Diego and beyond.
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John V. Oyler, CEO, BioDuro
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John, is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of success. John has raised over $250 million in capital, each round providing positive returns.
John is most known for building highly-functional, passionate, world-class organizations.
John has started (or re-started, in the case of Genta), several companies including
BioDuro (sold to PPD). 670 person research company in Beijing that was a leader in its vision and ability to successfully undertake in fully integrated programs.
Galenea (private). 2003-2004. Drug discovery company developing drugs for CNS disease (schizophrenia) and respiratory disease (siRNA-based) partnered with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals in a $50 million deal.
Genta (Nasdaq - GNTA). 1997-1998. John served as co-CEO of this publicly company which later grew to a market capitalization of over $US1.6 billion.
Telephia (sold). 1998-2002. John Founded and co-managed this information services company for the telecommunications industry. Telephia was purchased by Nielsen for just under $500 million.
Mr. Oyler spent four years at McKinsey where he spent 1992-3 working in China and holds a BS from MIT and a MBA from Stanford.
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Lewis Shuster, CEO, Shuster Capital
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Mr. Shuster is presently CEO of Shuster Capital, an advisor to and angel investor in life science companies with a focus on operating businesses including lab reagents, contract services, and diagnostics. From 2003 to 2007 Mr. Shuster served as CEO of Kemia, Inc., a drug discovery and development company. Kemia completed $70 million of VC financing and Phase I and II clinical trials of an internally discovered oral anti-inflammatory. Mr. Shuster previously held executive positions with Invitrogen, including COO. From 1994 through 1999 Mr. Shuster served as CFO and later COO of Pharmacopeia, Inc., including leading a successful 1995 IPO. From 1992 to 1994 Mr. Shuster served as EVP, Finance and Operations at Human Genome Sciences, where he started as the company’s first employee and supported a successful 1993 IPO. From 1986 until 1992 Mr. Shuster served as EVP and then CEO of Microbiological Associates, where he led a successful turnaround of a failing LBO and built a profitable GLP biological testing service business today known as BioReliance. Before joining Microbiological Associates, Mr. Shuster held positions with MDL Ltd and the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Shuster holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Swarthmore College.
Mr. Shuster presently serves as a Board Member and Audit Committee Chairman for Epitomics, Inc., and on the Boards of Retrotope and Complete Genomics, Inc.
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James Jiayuan Tong, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Financial Officer, Chief Business & Development Officer, Tianyin Pharmaceutical, China
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Dr. James Jiayuan Tong joined Tianyin as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business & Development Officer, and a member of the Company's Board of Directors on April 1, 2010. Prior to his position at Tianyin, Dr. Tong was the Head of China Healthcare Investment Banking at ROTH Capital Partners, Newport Beach, CA. He initially joined ROTH as an equity research analyst, spearheading ROTH's effort in China healthcare universe, covering a series of U.S.-listed Chinese pharmaceutical, biotech, medical devices and drug retail businesses. Prior to that, Dr. Tong was a biotechnology analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, New York, covering biotech entities focusing on molecular diagnostics and cures for Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and cancer. Before his Wall Street career, Dr. Tong was Principal Investigator at Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) sponsored by Grass Foundation at Woods Hole, MA and a Senior Research Fellow at University of California, Irvine (UCI). Dr. Tong was awarded Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory / Stony Brook University Neuroscience program. He developed an innovative method to significantly extend life spans of animals based on his work on mitochondria, aging and learning disorders in Neurofibromatosis-1 (NF1) disease. He published three first-authored Nature articles and currently holds two patents. Dr. Tong received his medical degree from Peking University Health Science Center.
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Xiaodong Wang, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing China
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Dr. Xiaodong Wang was born in Wuhan in 1963. He received his bachelor's degree in Science from Beijing Normal University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
In 2004 he was awarded the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) award in Molecular Biology for his biochemical studies of apoptosis which had resolved a molecular pathway leading in and out of the mitochondrion.
Dr. Wang pioneered the discovery of effector mechanisms for mammalian apoptosis operating in the cytosol downstream of the mitochondria. He identified and characterized the apoptosome complex comprised of released cytochrome c, Apaf-1 and caspase-9 critical to effecting cell death. Moreover, he discovered additional apoptotic regulators including DFF, EndoG and SMAC. For these he was elected to National Academy of Sciences in the year 2004.
Dr. Xiaodong Wang was awarded The 2006 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine for his discovery of the biochemical basis of programmed cell death, a vital process that balances cell birth and defends against cancer.
Dr. Xiaodong Wang currently serves as George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair Professor in Biomedical Science at UT-Southwestern; Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Investigator and Co-Director of National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing.
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Troy Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., President and CEO, Intellikine
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Dr. Troy Wilson serves as our President and CEO and is a co-founder of Intellikine. Dr. Wilson was formerly co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Ambrx, a biotechnology company focused on the optimization of protein-based medicines using non-natural amino acids as well as a co-founder of Wildcat Discovery Technologies. He previously served as Vice President, Business Development and General Counsel at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) in San Diego where he played a key role in the creation and launch of several spinout companies. Dr. Wilson received his Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his law degree from New York University.
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Steve Yang, Ph.D., Vice President, Head of R&D, Asia at Pfizer
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Dr. Steve Yang is Vice President, Head of R&D, Asia for Pfizer PharmaTherapeutics Research & Development. He is based in Shanghai, China. He focuses on establishing and implementing Asia R&D strategy for Pfizer.
Dr. Yang received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from University of California, San Francisco. He started his undergraduate study in Fudan University, Shanghai, China and completed his BS Summa Cum Laude in Biology from Michigan Technological University.
Prior to his current role, Dr. Yang was Pfizer’s Head of Research, Asia. His responsibilities included exploring R&D capabilities of Asia countries, establishing and managing partnerships with biotech companies, academic research institutions, and R&D service providers. Previously Dr. Yang was an Executive Director and the global head of Pfizer Global R&D’s Strategic Management Group. His main responsibilities included providing strategic advice and consulting service to the senior R&D leaders and managing a global team of internal consultants. He has extensive experience in business and corporate development, strategic planning, portfolio management, and merger and acquisition. Since he joined Pfizer, Steve led a series of high impact projects in the areas of R&D strategy, post merger integration, and R&D productivity improvements. He received a PGRD Achievement Award in 2003. Dr. Yang served on Pfizer’s Worldwide Discovery Leadership Team and Research Technology Leadership Team in 2004. He was a member of Pfizer’s Research Leadership Team from 2005 to 2007. He is currently a member of Pfizer Global R&D’s Leadership Team.
Prior to Pfizer, Steve held positions of varying responsibilities at IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals, an emerging biotech company in California. As Senior Director of Corporate Development reporting to the CEO and CFO of the company, he was responsible for projects involving corporate strategy and partnerships. Prior to IntraBiotics, Steve worked for Strategic Decisions Group (SDG), a boutique management consulting firm specialized in strategy consulting for Fortune 100 companies.
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Guo-Liang Yu, Ph.D., President, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Epitomics
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Biotechnologist and entrepreneur Dr. Guo-Liang Yu has more than 12 years of experience in genomics and 24 years of experience in life sciences research. Before cofounding Epitomics, Dr. Yu was Senior Vice-President of Research and Development at Mendel Biotechnology Inc. While there, Dr. Yu established a robust functional genomics program, exceeded all six milestones for the Research Agreement with Monsanto and Savia, all while managing more than 60 Ph.D. scientists and research associates.
At Human Genome Sciences, Inc., a prominent genomics company, Dr. Yu helped to establish the high-throughput gene discovery program. He also led the technology development group and cancer group. He identified and characterized numerous genes for therapeutic protein and drug discovery.
Dr. Yu was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. degree in Biochemistry from Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Dr. Yu also founded the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association headquartered in Washington DC. He is coinventor and coauthor of more than 100 patents and scientific articles.
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