Christopher Lipinski is a Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Groton Laboratories, Pfizer Global Research and Development, Groton, Connecticut. He obtained a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and did his postdoctoral training at Caltech, supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. After joining Pfizer in 1970, he supervised medicinal chemistry laboratories, discovering multiple gastrointestinal and diabetic clinical candidates. In 1990, he established a laboratory combining computations and experimental physical-property measurements. He is the author of "The Rule of Five," a widely used filter for drug-like properties. Dr. Lipinski serves on the highlights panel of Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, the Conference Advisory Board of Cambridge HealthTech, as a consultant to the Hereditary Disease Foundation and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Current Drug Discovery Techniques. Since 1984, he has been an adjunct faculty member at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, and has over 160 publications and invited presentations and 17 issued US patents.

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SUSAN J. WARD, Ph.D
Executive Advisor to Biotech, their Investors and Suppliers

Dr. Ward has over 20 years operational experience in major Pharma and as a corporate office in successful Biotech, with responsibilities in drug discovery and development, supporting technology and process development, and corporate strategy.

Educated as a research scientist in central nervous system disorders, Susan began her research career at Sterling Drug in 1982. In 1993, she joined Wyeth Research as Vice President of Research (UK) and Vice President of  CNS Disorders worldwide.  Adopting responsibility for Project Management and the Wyeth Drug Development Portfolio in 1996, Susan oversaw the development of 30+ new and life cycle extension products, including global approvals for Enbrel, Mylotarg, Sonata, Rapamune and Protonix, and label extensions for Efexor and Women’s Health products.   She established one of the first project management capabilities in drug discovery in the industry, halving time to first studies in man, and improving productivity in several steps in the development process.

Joining the corporate senior team of Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2000, Susan led the evolution of Millennium’s successful genome technology platform into downstream R&D areas, established knowledge management capability, and integrated these into a comprehensive Productivity strategy and platform.  Susan worked with Infinity Pharmaceuticals, first as an advisor to its inception and early start-up, and than as Executive Vice President establishing a cutting-edge and integrated platform operational and strategic platform designed to aid productivity of both scientists and business functions.

Dr. Ward is now an Executive Advisor to Biotechnology, sometimes joining the senior management team of a company at a strategic transition point for an interim period of time.  She is the founding CSO of Syngenetic, a software company dynamically integrating disparate information sources for the Life Sciences, and serves on the Advisory Boards of Timeblaster, Ingenuity, and Business Engine software companies. Susan established the initial research strategy and plan for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a leading RNA-interference company, and undertakes shorter consults in Biotech, recent clients including Viropharma, Adolor, Abgenix, and several venture capital firms.

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HERSCHEL J. R. WEINTRAUB, Ph.D
Principal Consultant, IBM Life Sciences, Peoria, Arizona

Herschel J.R. Weintraub received his Ph.D. in Macromolecular Science from Case Western Reserve University in 1975.  He also holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Case Institute of Technology.  Following postdoctoral research in Medicinal Chemistry at the Purdue University School of Pharmacy, he served on the faculty of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at Purdue as an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry.  In 1978, he was awarded a USPHS National Library of Medicine Fellowship in Computer Science at the University of Illinois.  Dr. Weintraub maintained his appointment at Purdue until 1982, when he joined the Lilly Research Laboratories as Senior Physical Chemist.  He subsequently joined the Computer-Assisted Molecular Design group at Abbott Laboratories, and in 1986 established the Theoretical Chemistry Department at Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (now Aventis).  During the period from 1986 until 1993, as Head of Global Theoretical Chemistry and Scientific Supercomputing, Herschel was instrumental in the acquisition of graphics systems, major modeling software, and a Cray Supercomputer for Molecular Design and Structural Chemistry applications.  In 1993, Dr. Weintraub moved to the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute as Assistant Director of Discovery Research, Computer-Assisted Drug Discovery.  In 1997, Herschel accepted the position of Vice President, Computational Chemistry and Informatics, at Helios Pharmaceuticals in Louisville, Kentucky.  He then served as Director of Scientific Computing at Genentech, Inc. in South San Francisco, California until 2001.  After working as an independent consultant in the area of Pharmaceutical and Biotech R&D Informatics and Molecular Modeling, Herschel joined IBM Life Sciences as a Principal Consultant.

Dr. Weintraub is the author of CAMSEQâ, developed in 1973 as the first commercial molecular modeling application for “small molecule” drug design, and CAMSEQ/M, a PC-based graphical molecular modeling program, developed in 1979.

Dr. Weintraub is the author of over 30 scientific publications, including 6 book chapters on subjects related to molecular modeling and drug design.  His research interests lie in the areas of Pharmaceutical Informatics, Computer-Assisted Drug Discovery, Structural Chemistry, Combinatorial Chemistry and Diversity, and applications development in these fields.  He is past chair of the Gordon Conference on QSAR.

He is also an associate faculty member in the Molecular Design Institute of the University of California at San Francisco and serves on the Advisory Board of Current Drug Discovery.

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RICHARD BARKER, D.Phil.
President, New Medicine Partners

Richard Barker has had more than 20 years of experience in the health care industry and has held a range of senior leadership roles, in both early stage and mature companies, and in consulting.   He leads New Medicine Partners, a firm focused on assisting growth stage biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to address issues of strategy, product development & commercialization, M&A and knowledge management.  He also is a co-founder and Board member of Homeland Defense Ventures, which - among other activities - assists investors and companies seeking to enter the rapidly growing biodefense market.  He is also a member of the board of Exact Sciences, an applied genomics company commercializing cancer screening tests.

Prior to founding NMP, he was President and CEO of iKnowMed, an Internet-based clinical decision support service that provides leading oncologists with real-time information on treatment regimens and clinical trials, and collects critical point-of-care data on drug usage for pharmaceutical companies.

Prior to iKnowMed, Dr. Barker was CEO of Chiron Diagnostics, a $600 million division of the biotechnology company Chiron, developing and marketing diagnostic systems worldwide. He restructured the company’s business for improved profitability, directed the launch of several major new products, and led merger-and-acquisition discussions with prospective partners prior to Bayer's acquisition of the company. He also played a leading role at Chiron in strategy and business development.

Previously, he was the first General Manager of International Business Machines' $2 billion worldwide health care solutions business; he led this unit in the creation of information solutions and was responsible for marketing and sales to major clients globally.

Before these operating positions, Dr. Barker spent 13 years with McKinsey & Company, leading that firm's pharmaceuticals practice in Europe.

Dr. Barker has a D.Phil. in biophysics and a BA in Chemistry, both from Oxford.

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 SHOIBAL DATTA, Ph.D
Director, Life Science Practice, Tibiosys, Inc.

Dr. Datta heads the Life Sciences Practice at Tribiosys. He has over 12 years of research experience in the Life Sciences. Dr. Datta has conducted research in the areas of molecular retrovirology, cancer biology, chromatin structure and function, gene expression and gene therapy. At Tribiosys, he is responsible for defining the Life Sciences services for the company and has participated in multiple knowledge management projects for leading biopharmaceutical organizations. Prior to joining Tribiosys he was a Lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught courses on AIDS, Molecular Biology of Cancer and Computational Molecular Biology.

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SHIV TASKER, MBA

Shiv Tasker, a partner with Emsan Consulting, heads the start up and emerging growth company practice with focus on business and marketing strategy.  Prior to Emsan Consulting, Shiv was the president and CEO of Phase Forward, a software and service solution vendor for the data collection and management of clinical trials of new drugs and devices. 

Prior to Phase Forward, Shiv was Sr. Vice President for Worldwide Sales, Consulting Services and Corporate Marketing at Viewlogic Systems Inc, a supplier of complex electronic design automation tools for Integrated Circuit and Printed Circuit Board design.  As SVP of Sales, Viewlogic had successive quarters of record growth ($200M run rate) till the company’s sale to a larger competitor.  He improved service gross margins from 27% to 62% within 6 quarters and successfully branded the company away from its historical slower growing products to a new set of hot growth products that led to the company being viewed as a serious acquisition target.

Mr. Tasker spent 8 years at Cadence Design Systems in a variety of roles in marketing and general management with ever increasing responsibility for product lines and larger P&Ls.  Prior to Cadence, he was with Intergraph Corp for 5.5 years, initially as a programmer and later as a marketer.

Mr. Tasker holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington and a BS from the University of Bombay in Statistics and Economics. He is a member of the Drug Information Association and works with the Youth Technology Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organization aimed at enriching high school curriculums with real life technology skills - primarily in lower income school districts.  He was recently honored by Mass Hi-Tech as an All-Star

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