Successful Drug Discovery

Janos Fischer is a Senior Research Scientist at Richter Plc., Budapest, Hungary. He received his MSc and PhD degrees in organic chemistry from the Eotvos University of Budapest. He has worked at Richter Plc. since 1981 where he participated in the research and development of leading cardiovascular drugs in Hungary. His main interest is analogue based drug discovery. He is the author of some 100 patents and scientific publications. Since 2014 he is Chair of the Subcommittee on Drug Discovery and Development of IUPAC. He received an honorary professorship at the Technical University of Budapest.

Christian Klein is Head of Oncology Programs at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich, specialized in the discovery, validation and preclinical development of antibody based cancer immunotherapies and bispecific antibodies. During his 15 years at Roche he has made major contributions as research project leader to the development and FDA/EMA approval of obinutuzumab, the preclinical development of four bispecific antibodies currently in active clinical development, as well as the development of Roche's novel proprietary bispecific antibody platforms e.g. the CrossMAb technology.

Wayne Childers is Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. He received his academic degrees from Vanderbilt University and from the University of Georgia. He served as an assistant adjunct professor at Bucknell University before accepting a position as a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then joined Wyeth, working in numerous therapeutic areas, including psychiatric diseases, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease, and the treatment of chronic pain. He stayed with Wyeth for 22 years, before joining the faculty of Temple University in 2010.