Strategic Advisory Board

Dr Desmond Fitzgerald (B.Sc. FRCP. FFPM)  is a graduate in science and medicine.  After 7 years of clinical experience in hospital medicine he joined the pharmaceutical industry, initially in Ciba (Basle) and then the Pharmaceutical Division of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI; now Astra Zeneca) UK where he worked for 19 years.  He became Division Head of Cardiovascular Research, and subsequently Manager of the Biology Department, General Manager of Research Department II and finally joined the Divisional Board as International Medical Director.
From 1972 to 1976, he was Professor of Medicine at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and from 1989-1992 visiting Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, where he co-ordinated the creation of post-graduate degree courses in Pharmacoepidemiology.

Dr. Gromo, born and educated in Milan, Italy, graduated as M.D. with honors and a PhD in Clinical and Experimental Hematology from the University of Milan.

After several years as Associate Medical Doctor at the University of Milan, Divisione di Medicina II, San Raffaele Hospital, he moved to Minneapolis as a member of the Faculty of the University of Minnesota. He later became Director of the Biology-Cardiovascular Division at Eli-Lilly.

Dr. Gromo has worked with F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd in Basel, Switzerland, since 1998 and from 2007 to the present as Global Head of the Metabolic and Vascular Disease Area.

Peppi Prasit has more than 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and management. He is a founder of Inception Sciences, a small molecule drug discovery company. Prior to Inception Sciences, Peppi was co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Amira Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and early development of new small molecule drugs and chosen as one of the most promising biotech companies in 2010 by FierceBiotech. Amira successfully created five candidates entering clinical trials within five years from company inception. Included in these programs are AM103/AM803, oral inhibitors of 5-lipoxygenase activating protein (FLAP) partnered by GlaxoSmithKline, and AM152, a first-in-class LPA-1 receptor antagonist recently selected by Thomson Reuters as one of the five most promising drugs in Phase 1 clinical trials in the pharmaceutical industry (“Pharma Matters: The Ones To Watch”, Oct-Dec 2010).

 

Dr. Whiting has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 30 years, initially at Beecham Research Laboratories in England, then at Syntex Research in Scotland.

In 1985 he transferred to Syntex in Palo Alto, where he led both basic research and early development and defined the company's fledgling program in pain.