Confirmed Speakers

Phil has over 30 years experience in drug discovery within a number of major pharma companies and also academia including senior roles as Executive Director and Acting Site Head. In 2018 he took up his current position at BioAscent as the company expanded its capabilities from compound management to offering integrated drug discovery services. In spring 2020, Phil played a key role in establishing the Lighthouse Laboratory in Glasgow, part of the UK network for COVID testing labs. Phil was a member of the EFMC-EC for four years and was chair of the organising committee of EFMC-ISMC 2016 in Manchester. Phil was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2005 and is an author on over 70 scientific papers and patents.

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Vera studied Medical Biology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. After that she pursued a PhD in Molecular Metabolism, which she obtained from the State University Groningen (RUG) in May 2017. After her PhD she gained experience in the pharmaceutical industry as a Regulatory Affairs Manager at Novartis. She joined Lygature in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in June 2018 to work as a Program Manager. Lygature is the coordinating organisation for the European Lead Factory. As such, Vera has been involved with the ELF from the beginning of 2019.

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Jean Quancard studied Chemistry at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris and continued with a PhD in Chemical Biology at University of Pierre et Marie Curie. In 2004, he moved to Stanford University in the US for a Postdoc with Pr. Barry Trost.

Jean joined Novartis in 2006 in the Global Discovery Chemistry Department and since then worked in several therapeutic areas such as autoimmunity, oncology, ophthalmology and neuroscience. He also spent a few years in the protease platform, the expertise group focused on the discovery of protease inhibitors. Currently, he is Director and Head of Chemistry for the Musculoskeletal disease area.

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Steven van Helden (PhD) was trained as a computational chemist and has worked in various roles in pharmaceutical industry since 1992. In 2003 he became head of Organon’s HTS group and after the closure of the research site he developed a business plan to continue the screening activities in a new company. This led to the Pivot Park Screening Centre (PPSC) where he is now Chief Technology Officer. Apart from his work at PPSC, Steven is actively involved in The European Lead Factory and in the Society for Lab Automation and Screening.

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