Speaker Bios 2016

Tim Briggs, Ph.D., Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry, Ensemble Therapeutics

Tim Briggs earned his Ph.D. in 2003 from Cornell University, and followed up with a postdoc in natural product synthesis at Florida State University where he worked on the synthesis of macrocyclic natural products. Tim joined the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2005 where he worked on the construction of diversity-oriented libraries of macrocycles as part of the CMLD (Chemical Methodologies and Library Development) program. Tim joined Ensemble Therapeutics in 2008. During his time at Ensemble he has led the development of first-in-class orally active IL17A antagonists which Ensemble subsequently licensed to Novartis. Currently he is leading medicinal chemistry efforts in developing highly selective and orally available macrocyclic IDO-1 inhibitors.

Andrew P. Combs, Ph.D., Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry, Incyte Corporation

Andrew P. Combs, Ph.D., joined Incyte in 2003 where he is currently a Vice President of Discovery Chemistry. Prior to Incyte, Dr. Combs was a Director at Bristol-Myers Squibb and Dupont-Merck. He has led several medicinal chemistry programs in oncology to novel candidates, three of which are currently in human clinical trials. The most advanced is epacadostat, a first-in-class IDO1 inhibitor, which is expected to enter pivotal phase 3 trials in combination with pembrolizumab, an anti-PD1, for advanced melanoma in 2016. His passion for research embraces the application of innovative technologies to expedite the invention of new chemical entities. He has co-authored >100 research articles/posters/book chapters, an inventor on >30 patents, co-chaired >10 conferences and served on editorial advisory boards of several scientific journals (currently J. Med. Chem. Letters). Dr. Combs was a HHMI post-doctoral fellow in the laboratories of Prof. Schreiber at Harvard from 1994-1996 and holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from UCLA and BS degrees in Chemistry and Molecular Biology from the UW-Madison.

Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D., President of Research, CSO, Epizyme, Inc.

Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Epizyme, Inc. He joined Epizyme in September 2008, from GlaxoSmithKline, where he was Vice President of Cancer Biology, Oncology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery. Dr. Copeland has also served on a number of advisory boards, committees and editorial boards in industry, academia, professional societies and professional journals, including: Adjunct Professor and Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; American Chemical Society Committee for Professional Training; Governance Council of the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry; and Editorial Board of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Before joining GSK he held scientific staff positions at Merck Research Laboratories, DuPont-Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb and a faculty position at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Copeland received his B.S. in chemistry from Seton Hall University, his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and did postdoctoral studies as the Chaim Weizmann Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His research interest is in elucidating the determinants of drug recognition by their biological targets, and the use of this information in the discovery and design of new medicines. A common theme throughout his research has been the role of protein dynamics in drug-target interactions. In 2005-2006 Dr. Copeland formulated the concept of drug-target residence time, a novel, alternative approach to drug optimization that has been widely adopted throughout the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He has contributed to drug discovery and development efforts across a wide range of therapeutic areas leading to 17 drug candidates entering human clinical trials. These include the cancer drugs Tafinlar (Dabrafenib), Foretinib, Afuresertib and Mekinist (Trametinib) and the antibiotic Altabax (Retapamulin). Dr. Copeland has contributed more than 190 publications to the scientific literature, holds 10 issued U. S. patents and has authored 5 books in the areas of protein science and enzymology. His most recent book, Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitors in Drug Discovery: A Guide for Medicinal Chemists and Pharmacologists, 2nd Edition (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ), published in March 2013.

Anna Coulon Spektor, CDD Customer Success Manager, Support and Training, Collaborative Drug Discovery

Speaker bio coming soon

Bill Farley, Ph.D., Vice President, Business Development, HitGen

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Timothy P. Heffron, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Discovery Chemistry, Genentech, Inc.

Tim Heffron earned his BS degree in Chemistry from Yale where he conducted research in John Wood's laboratory. He went on to obtain his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at MIT under the guidance of Prof. Tim Jamison. While at MIT, Tim developed iterative and cascade methods for the synthesis of ladder polyethers. Currently a Senior Scientist and Research Team Leader at Genentech, Tim has worked on programs directed toward treating oncology, neurology, and ophthalmic indications. He has contributed to program teams that have advanced 7 molecules to Clinical Development including 4 under his leadership as a chemistry team leader.

Edward J. Hennessy, Ph.D., Associate Principal Scientist, Oncology iMed, Chemistry, Innovative Medicines and Early Development, AstraZeneca

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David Hepworth, Ph.D., Senior Director, Worldwide Medicinal Chemistry, Pfizer

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Joerg Holenz, Ph.D., Director, Discovery and Preclinical Sciences; Project Leader, Neuroscience iMed, AstraZeneca Neuroscience

Joerg is a trained Organic and Medicinal Chemist and acquired his Ph.D. in Germany on the synthesis of alkaloids as antimalarial agents. He started his professional career in 1998 as Process Chemist at Grunenthal Pharmaceuticals in Germany, leading the preclinical activities of the later marketed analgesic Tapentadol. From 2003 to 2006, he headed the Medicinal Chemistry Department of Barcelona-based Laboratorios Esteve. In 2006, Joerg joined AstraZeneca’s CNS/PainResearch Unit in Sodertalje, Sweden, as a Project Leader, and later headed the Lead Generation Section within the Medicinal Chemistry Department. In 2012, Jorg was selected to join the newly formed ‘virtual’ Neuroscience Unit in Boston as Project Director, and in this role is responsible for pioneering a novel concept of driving Research and Development via increased use of academic and industry collaborative networks. In his career, Joerg worked predominantly with peripheral and central targets in the Pain/Neuroscience disease areas, where hedelivered several clinical candidates (e.g. Rosonabant, E-6199, E-52862, or AZD3839). Joerg has edited, authored or contributed to more than 45 publications, 50 patent applications and several books and book chapters.

John Howe, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Infectious Diseases, Merck & Co.

Dr. Howe obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada) where he studied the role of the adenovirus E1A oncogene in cell cycle regulation. After postdoctoral studies on embryonic cell cycle regulation at UC San Diego Dr. Howe joined a Biotech in La Jolla California that was developing innovative gene therapy approaches for treatment of cancer. After 13 years on the west coast Dr. Howe moved to the east coast to develop HIV and HCV antivirals at Schering-Plough Inc., which is now Merck & Co. A highlight of this period was Dr. Howe’s role in the development and regulatory approval of boceprevir the first direct acting antiviral for treatment of chronic HCV infection. In 2004 Dr. Howe transitioned to the anti-bacterial group at Merck to develop antibiotics against drug resistant gram - organisms.

Katherine L. Lee, Ph.D., Associate Research Fellow, Worldwide Medicinal Chemistry, Pfizer

Katherine Lee obtained her Ph.D. from MIT, where she worked with Prof. Rick Danheiser, and did postdoctoral work with Prof. Steve Martin at the University of Texas at Austin before joining Mitotix, Inc. (now Agennix). Katherine moved to Wyeth Research (now Pfizer) in 2000 and joined Pfizer in 2009. Her research interests include small molecule drug discovery; structure-based drug design; fragment-based drug design; and optimization of ADME and safety properties.

Chudi Ndubaku, Ph.D., Associate Director, Organic Synthetic Chemistry, Aduro Biotech, Inc.

Chudi Ndubaku is an Associate Director of Chemistry at Aduro Biotech. Prior to joining Aduro, he was a Senior Scientist in the Department of Discovery Chemistry at Genentech. He received a B.S. in Chemistry from University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Prof. Tim Jamison. His industrial research experience has spanned the fields of Medicinal Chemistry as it applies to the areas of oncology, ophthalmology, immunology and neurology.

Dave Parry, Ph.D., COO, Cyclofluidic

David started his career as a medicinal chemist after his academic training in organic synthesis and rapidly developed an interest in the technology aspects of drug discovery. With considerable experience in early stage discovery and technologies within biotech and mid-sized biopharma including leading high throughput chemistry, analytical and computational chemistry groups Dave joined Cyclofluidic as COO in Jan 2009 where he has led the development of the platform and the business.

Zhonghua Pei, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Genentech

Speaker bio coming soon

Paul Richardson, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist, Discovery Chemistry, Pfizer

Paul Richardson is a Synthesis Group Leader within Discovery Chemistry at Pfizer’s Research and Development site in La Jolla, California. Paul has over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He joined Pfizer in 2004, after working with Lexicon Pharmaceuticals/Coelacanth (NJ) as Director of Process Chemistry for 8 years. Prior to that, he worked with Nycomed-Amersham in the UK. Paul received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Sheffield University, where he worked with Professor Istvan Marko. He completed postdoctoral research studies at both Exeter University with Professor Stan Roberts, and at the Scripps Research Institute under the direction of Professor Barry Sharpless.

Woody Sherman, Ph.D., Vice President, Applications Science, Schrödinger

Woody Sherman, Vice President of Applications Science, joined Schrödinger in 2004. He received his Ph.D. from MIT where he developed a novel method for optimizing ligand binding specificity across a panel of targets. While in graduate school he completed an internship at Biogen where he helped develop novel methods to enhance antibody affinity that resulted in a patent and publication. He has authored papers on induced-fit docking, binding specificity, antibody design, fragment docking, and hybrid ligand/structure-based methods. He is also co-author on two patents. Woody is a reviewer for many top journals related to computational chemistry and drug design and is on the Editorial Board of Chemical Biology & Drug Design as well as The Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling.

David Swinney, CEO, iRND3, Institute for Rare and Neglected Diseases

David Swinney has over 25 years of industrial drug discovery experience (Roche, Syntex, iRND3) working to identify promising leads, clinical candidates and effective mechanisms of drug action that address unmet medical needs. He has a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Washington, Seattle, and expertise in drug discovery, drug discovery strategies, assay development and screening, pharmacology, enzymology and binding kinetics. Dave is currently at the non-profit Institute for Rare and Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery in Mountain View, CA, aka iRND3, (www.irnd3.org) working to apply new knowledge of successful drug discovery to drug discovery in rare and neglected diseases. iRND3 has programs for neglect infectious diseases and cancers. They also provide fee for service work to help understand molecular mechanisms of action of drug candidates.

Helmut Thomas, Ph.D., DABT, President and CEO, Cyclenium Pharma, Inc.

Dr. Thomas is an accomplished pharmaceutical executive and scientific R&D leader with sharp strategic and business focus. Prior to co-founding Cyclenium Pharma in 2013, he was Senior Vice President, Research & Preclinical Development at Tranzyme Pharma for over seven years. He joined Tranzyme from LymphoSign Inc., where he served as Vice President, Research and Development. A biochemist and toxicologist by training with an extensive and productive career in drug discovery and development, he joined CIBA-GEIGY in Basel, Switzerland in 1990 with increasing responsibilities. Following the merger with Sandoz in 1997, he spent the next eight years with Novartis Pharma holding several senior management positions in Europe and the U.S. During his tenure with CIBA-GEIGY and Novartis, he directed the preclinical development of more than 25 drug candidates. Dr. Thomas received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and organic chemistry from the University of Hannover, Germany. He is an author of over 130 scientific articles, book chapters and abstracts as well as a co-inventor on numerous patents.

Atli Thorarensen, Ph.D., Research, Fellow, BioTx Medicinal Chemistry, Pfizer

Dr. Thorarensen is a research fellow in BioTx medicinal chemistry working in the Immunoscience research unit at Pfizer. In the past he has lead medicinal projects in several therapeutic areas including anti-infective, allergy and respiratory, pain and inflammation. In the past few years his focus has been design of irreversible inhibitors as therapeutic targets for inflammation. Dr. Thorarensen received his BS in chemistry from University of Iceland and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from University of Illinois. He is the author of 47 publications and 24 patents.

Anil Vasudevan, Ph.D., Director, Medicinal Chemistry Technologies, AbbVie, Inc.

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Anne Mai Wassermann, Ph.D., Associate Principal Scientist, Cheminformatics, Merck

Anne Mai Wassermann obtained her Masters in molecular biomedicine and her PhD in computational life sciences from the University of Bonn, Germany. She was trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the in silico Lead Discovery group at Novartis, Cambridge, MA. Her current research interests focus on small molecule profiling and phenotypic screening.

Mark Wolf, Ph.D., Section Head, Medicinal Chemistry, Albany Molecular Research, Inc.

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