The research and development (R&D) process that ultimately leads to effective drugs is exceedingly difficult, and often the public does not understand the drug discovery pipeline. In a typical model, drug companies will research tens of thousands to millions of compounds and spend in excess of a billion dollars over a 10- to 20-year period … Continue reading “Nonprofits and the Valley of Death in Drug Discovery”
Author: Walter Moos
Walter Moos is vice president of the Biosciences Division at the nonprofit research institute, SRI International. At SRI, which he joined in 2005, he leads a unique pharmaceutical team of more than 200 people, with all of the resources necessary to take research from "idea to IND"---from initial discoveries to the start of human clinical trials. SRI Biosciences is an integrated R&D organization, carrying out basic research on disease mechanisms like a university, product discovery like a biotech venture, and preclinical services like a contract research organization.
From 1997-2004, Dr. Moos was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MitoKor (now Biowest). From 1991-1997, he was a Vice President with Chiron (now Novartis). From 1982-1991, he rose to the level of Vice President at the Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research Division of Warner-Lambert (now Pfizer). Dr. Moos serves on the boards of the public biotech company, Rigel, and several nonprofits, including the Critical Path Institute and Keystone Symposia. He has served on numerous other boards, for example, Alnis, Anterion, Axiom, BIO, Migenix, Mimotopes, Oncologic, and Onyx. He and his teams have been successful taking a number of drugs and biologics from research to market.
Dr. Moos has held adjunct faculty positions at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has been adjunct full professor at the University of California – San Francisco since 1992 and at James Madison University since 2007. He has also served on a variety of academic, government, venture capital, and other advisory committees. Dr. Moos has edited 5 books, founded multiple journals, and has about 150 published manuscripts and patents. He holds degrees from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.