Scientific Advisory Board

OriBase Pharma is supported by a highly experienced Scientific Advisory Board that has followed the company since its creation in 2007 (formerly Nova Decision & Azasynth 2007-2010).

Dr. Jan Wasley - SAB Chairman

Dr Jan Wasley's scientific background lies in organic and medicinal chemistry. He received his B.Sc. degree in chemistry in 1959 and his Ph.D. (synthesis of pyrroles, porphyrins and related macrocycles) in 1962 from Professor A.W. Johnson at the University of Nottingham, England. Following a postdoctoral fellowship (the elucidation of chlorobium chlorophylls with Dr. A.S. Holt) during 1962-1964 at the National Research Council of Canada, Dr. Wasley joined the Research Division of Geigy Pharmaceuticals in 1965 as a Senior Chemist, gradually holding positions of increasing responsibility within drug discovery and drug development activities. Dr. Wasley joined the Institutes of Pharmaceutical Discovery in Branford Connecticut in 2001 as Vice President for Research in the Institute of Bioanalytics, and in addition, in 2002 he became the Chief Scientific Officer for the Institutes of Pharmaceutical Discovery. Prior to that, Dr Wasley was the Vice President of Business Development and the Director of Chemistry at Neurogen, where he became involved in the development of Neurogen's Accelerated Intelligent Drug Design (AIDD) technologies. He retired from Neurogen in August 2001 and formed SimPharma LLC. He has taught and lectured on drug design, discovery and development and is a WWBoard Member for the Society of Concurrent Product Development. He has more than 90 publications and patents in the field of medicinal chemistry.

Dr. Catherine Royer - SAB Vice-Chairman

Catherine Royer completed her undergraduate degree in natural sciences at the University of Paris 6 – Pierre et Marie Curie – in 1979, and her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1985, at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After her postdoctoral training at the CNRS in Gif sur Yvette and Paris 7, she returned to the University of Illinois in 1987 as the User Coordinator & Research Physicist at the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics. In 1990, Dr. Royer became Assistant Professor at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin Madison and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1995. In 1997, she became Director of Research in INSERM at the Centre of Structural Biochemistry in Montpellier, France, and subsequently Associate Director in 2002, and Director in 2007. Between 2004 and 2005, Dr. Royer was a visiting scientist in the Laboratory for Biophysical Chemistry in the NHLBI of the NIH in Bethesda. Her research interest is within the understanding the structure-function relationships and folding of proteins and protein-nucleic acid complexes using state of the art fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy approaches, as well as high pressure. Dr. Royer has published more than 100 peer reviewed articles and has served on several editorial boards and review panels.

Dr. Dragos Horvath

Dragos Horvath is a chemical engineer turned chemo-informatician, with a Ph.D. degree in molecular modeling (continuum solvent models, docking algorithms) from the Pasteur Institute Of Lille, Professor Tartar, and Free University of Brussels, Professor Wodak, since 1996. During and after his Ph.D., he worked with André Tartar in combinatorial chemistry building up a robotized synthesis unit and its associated chemo-informatics platform ‘from scratch’; latter as head of chemo-informatics after the academic combi-chem platform was taken over by the biotech company Cerep. Dr. Horvath left Cerep in 2003, now holding the position as a CNRS scientist at the Laboratoire d’InfoChimie in Strasbourg, where he continues to develop chemo-informatics and molecular modeling methodology: fuzzy pharmacophore descriptors and associated virtual screening protocols and property predictions and massively parallel docking protocols for computer grids. He has about 50 publications, book chapters, and the like.

Dr. Luc Van Hijfte

Luc Van Hijfte has led the medicinal chemistry department of Janssen Pharmaceutica within the European Discovery Capabilities, working for the CNS, infectious disease and oncology franchises since January 2008. For seven years previous to this, he was the Research Director of the Janssen-Cilag Research Centre in Normandy, France, where he supervised a team of 50 scientists involved in analytical and separation sciences and molecular modeling. Under his guidance, 4 new compounds entered the clinical phase. Dr. Van Hijfte led the Chemistry Department at the Synthelabo Biomoleculaire Centre in Strasbourg between 1997 and 2001 using combinatorial chemistry as a tool for library enrichment, while later returning to more classical medicinal chemistry approaches as Synthelabo was acquired by Sanofi. Directly after his postdoctoral period, he spent ten years as a medicinal chemist with Merrell Dow, Marion Merrell Dow and Hoechst Marion Roussel. Dr. Van Hijfte gained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the Universiteit Gent in 1984. He then undertook postdoctoral research at the University of California, working with Professor Dan Little on the application of the intramolecular diyl trapping reaction for the total synthesis of coriolin.

Dr. Karim Berrada

Dr. Karim Berrada received his M.Sc. degree at Cleveland State University where he studied water-born human parasites. For his Ph.D., he joined the Cancer Biology Department of the Lerner Research Center at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, at which he studied leukemogenesis. After completing a three year fellowship at the Clinical & Molecular Endocrinology of Case Western Reserve University/University Hospital of Cleveland, he joined the private sector where he held key positions and focused on the early phases of drug discovery. Dr. Berrada has served as Principal Investigator at Athersys, Synaptic and Helicon Therapeutics, and in 2003, he joined Ingenious Targeting Laboratories where he established a drug discovery program while managing also the development of various leads.

Prof. Jean-Francois Rossi

Prof. Jean-Francois Rossi is Professor of Clinical Hematology at the University Montpellier I, head of the Department of Clinical Hematology of the University Hospital of Montpellier, and also co-director of the Targeted Therapeutics and Biotherapy Program in the INSERM 847 unit (Institute for Research in Biotherapy, Montpellier) in association with Bernard Klein and Martin Villalba. As a specialist in hematology, immunology and oncology, he has built his scientific career within INSERM at Montpellier and in the US (Arizona Cancer Center and NCI). After five years at the Centre for the Fight against Cancer in Montpellier, he became head of the Department of Clinical Hematology and the Centre of Adult-Pediatrics Transplant Hematology of the University Hospital of Montpellier. His work in conjunction with Bernard Klein and his team concerns the discovery of new therapeutic targets, particularly in lymphoma B, with recognized expertise in the field of early proof of concept testing, including the search for biomarkers of interest and clinical development of drugs. Moreover, he has regional responsibilities in the Organization of Care and Health through a regional network of Hematology. Nationally, he is also involved in the field of clinical research within the cooperative group in hematology. Finally, he acts as a consultant in pharmaceutical companies and participates in the development of a platform for clinical trials in China as an associate professor.

Dr Danielle Le Peuch

Dr Danielle Le Peuch completed her undergraduate degree in sciences (biology & chemistry) at the University of Paris 7, and her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1981 in Montpellier at the University of "Sciences & Techniques du Languedoc" under the responsibility of Professor Jacques Demaille (INSERM U249, 1981/1983 related publications). After her PhD, she worked for 2 years as Research Associate at an US (NY) Consulting Company (Chemical Marketing Research) and returned to INSERM in 1983 as coordinator of public/private partnerships. From 1984 to 2010 she held a position of Project Director at Sanofi where she was mainly in charge of development of drugs for cardiovascular diseases among which a major antihypertensive drug (Approval/ Co-Approval) available worldwide in late 1990's. She became VP Project Director in charge of development of several drugs for CNS, infectious and tropical diseases. She has acquired a solid knowledge in international drug development -non clinical to clinical - with the understanding of the regulatory requirements necessary to get worldwide approvals (Europe,US, Japan, etc). Danielle Le Peuch retired from Sanofi in May 2010. She is currently member of the Advisory Board "Cap Manager of the BIC- Montpellier Agglomération.