Pfizer

Judy Chou, Ph.D., Appointed to Governing Board of California’s Stem Cell & Gene Therapy Agency

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Judy Chou, Ph.D.

Judy Chou, Ph.D. has been appointed to the Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee (ICOC), the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

Dr. Chou is the President, CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of AltruBio, Inc. a clinical stage biotech company that is focused on developing novel antibody therapeutics for the treatment of immune inflammatory diseases.

“I am excited to join the ICOC leveraging my experience both as a scientist in the the biopharmaceutical industry and as a corporate executive to support the research and funding of life changing medicines for patients in need,” said Dr. Chou.

Dr. Chou has more than 20 years experience in drug development and biomanufacturing. Before joining AltruBio she headed the global Biotech organization at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. At Bayer she oversaw the development, manufacturing and distribution of the company’s more than $3 billion product portfolio. She also oversaw more than 2,000 employees and led the drug development and launch activities for the biologics pipeline. In addition, she also served as the site head for Bayer’s facility in Berkeley, California, the company’s largest manufacturing site in the U.S.

“We are honored and delighted to have Dr. Chou take a seat on the Board,” says Jonathan Thomas, Ph.D., J.D., Chair of the CIRM Board. “She has a remarkable career in academia, industry and in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and will be an invaluable addition to the ICOC. We are very much looking forward to working with her.”

Dr. Chou also has had leadership roles at Pfizer, Medivation Inc., Genentech and Wyeth Biopharma. She has won several awards and in 2018 was the recipient of the Most Influential Women in Business award by the San Francisco Business Times. She is currently an advisor at the UC Berkeley Engineering School and is working to promote diversity and inclusion through her advisory board position at Silicon Valley Women in Engineering.

Dr. Chou obtained her Ph.D., at Yale, her post-doctoral training at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany and was a research faculty member at Harvard University Medical School focusing on cell biology and neuroscience.

Dr. Chou was appointed to the CIRM Board by State Treasurer Fiona Ma, as the Executive Officer of a Commercial Life Science entity. She replaces Dave Martin.

It’s official: the state of regenerative medicine is strong

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A panel discussion to a packed house at the annual ARM State of the Industry briefing

Calling it a “year of dramatic impact for patients” Janet Lambert, the CEO of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), gave the annual “State of the Industry” briefing today in San Francisco.

The briefing is a traditional kick-off event to mark JP Morgan week in the City, a time when hotel rooms go for $1,000 a night and just reserving a table in the lobby for meetings can set you back hundreds of dollars. Fortunately, the ARM briefing is free. And worth every penny.

Janet Lambert, CEO Alliance for Regenerative Medicine

Lambert ran down the numbers that highlighted how the field is growing and expanding:

  • 987 companies world wide – most of those in the US
  • 1,000 + clinical trials
  • $9.8 billion in revenue/investments

Saying “for many of these patients these therapies don’t just bring improvements, they bring dramatic improvements” Lambert pointed out that when those 1,000 clinical trials are fully enrolled it will mean 60,000 patients getting stem cell and gene therapies. She says it’s estimated that in the coming years around half a million patients in the US alone will get one of those therapies.

More and more of the clinical trials are at advanced stages:

  • 100 Phase 3
  • 591 Phase 2
  • 381 Phase 1

The biggest sector for clinical trials is cancer, but there are also substantial numbers for central nervous system therapies, muscular skeletal and even rare diseases.

Lambert said there are two key issues facing the field in the coming year. One is improving the industry’s manufacturing capability to ensure we are able to produce the cells needed to treat large numbers of patients. As evidence she cited the fact that Pfizer and Novartis are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in in-house manufacturing facilities. 

The second key issue is reimbursement, so that companies can get paid for delivering those treatments to patients.  “There is appetite and interest in this from people around the world, but right now most conversations about reimbursement are taking place one at a time. We haven’t yet evolved to the point where we have standard models to help get products to market and help them be commercially successful.”

The forecast for the year ahead? “Sunny with some clouds. 2019 was a year of significant growth and we enter 2020 with hopes of continued expansion, as we look to grow the impact on patients.”