|
Whaijen Soo, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President, Research and Development at Shire Human Genetic Therapies (HGT). In this position, Dr. Soo is responsible for overseeing HGT’s strategic planning and growth and management of its research and development portfolio. He also plays a key role in assessing and capturing business development opportunities. Dr. Soo’s functional group includes preclinical research and development, clinical research, regulatory affairs, process development, and medical affairs. Prior to joining Shire HGT, Dr. Soo was Senior Vice President, Medical Research, at BiogenIdec, where he was responsible for the worldwide clinical development of all drugs in the company’s portfolio. Functionally, his organization included clinical operations, drug safety and risk management, biometrics and medical writing, as well as therapeutic-area groups in neurobiology, immunology-rheumatology, and oncology. His teams were responsible for the successful filings of a number of New Drug Applications (NDAs) and Investigational New Drug (IND) applications with regulatory agencies in the United States, Europe and rest of the world. Before joining BiogenIdec, Dr. Soo spent eighteen years with Hoffmann La-Roche Inc., as Vice President and head of clinical sciences in charge of worldwide clinical development of new anticancer drugs, antiviral and immunotherapies against AIDS and other viral diseases, as well as drugs used for transplantation. Under his leadership, Roche successfully submitted and received market registration of fifteen new drug or biologics applications and line extensions. In particular, he built the global oncology portfolio from two drugs in the portfolio and three physicians into a group with more than ten drugs in development and over fifty physicians, clinical research scientists and specialists. He also created a Genetics and Integrated Medicine Unit for a coordinated effort on pharmacogenomics. He has coordinated business and research strategic planning, as well as pharma portfolio management at Roche, and led the integration of clinical research organizations during Roche’s acquisitions of Syntex and Bohringer-Mannheim. Dr. Soo was a member of numerous public and trade committees, including Round Table on Research and Development of Drugs, Biologics, and Devices, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Science, Board of Participants, Intercompany Collaborations on AIDS drug development, and Scientific Panel, American Foundation on AIDS Research. He is a board member of Linden Technologies Inc. Dr. Soo received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. He also completed postgraduate training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston. | 