Dr. Neal Goodwin joins Machavert as Chief Science Officer
Machavert is excited to introduce Dr. Neal Goodwin, Ph.D. as the Chief Science Officer who will be responsible for all Research and Development (R&D) programs. Neal is going to tremendously strengthen Machavert’s expertise in preclinical research and cancer biology and help the company reach new heights in terms of tackling regulatory issues as we move towards filing the company’s first investigational new drug application (IND).
“It is a great privilege to join Machavert at this very opportune time to launch its exciting therapeutic lipid technology into the IND enabling path,” said Neal. “I look forward to working together with the talented scientific and executive staff towards achieving this goal.”
Neal has a very broad expertise in modern drug discovery, and will also focus on establishing relationships with research institutions and foundations to form mutually productive pharma/biotech partnerships and academic collaborations. One of the key goals will certainly be to lead and strengthen the R&D team of Machavert, to expand our ability toward translational R&D and to explore applicability of our therapeutics in immune-oncology and personalized medicine to ultimately translate our effort into therapeutic benefits in our patients.
Neal’s arrival reflects Machavert’s transition toward a new development stage where fulfilling all preclinical R&D tasks required by the FDA for entering clinical trials is a top priority. Neal’s expertise blends all key areas that are crucial for Machavert at this moment, covering the FDA regulated path toward the IND, cancer biology that has the potential to unlock new knowledge about our phospholipid therapeutic candidates, and forming a new technology platform. Furthermore, Neal’s understanding of startups and fundraising will help us in our growth and strategy.
“Neal’s experience in successfully taking drug development programs to the IND is really important to us,” said Jakub Staszak-Jirkovsky, CEO Machavert. “But his experience with animal biology and oncology models is perhaps even more crucial as this has a potential to take Machavert’s R&D program to a new space entirely. We are all very excited about this latest addition to the team and look forward to this new development stage to reach clinical trials in the near future.”
Before joining the Machavert team, Neal served as Vice President Corporate Research Development for Champions Oncology (NASDAQ: CSBR) where his responsibilities included development of a patient derived tumorgraft pharmacology portfolio for personalized oncology and translational oncology solutions. He previously served as the Director, Research and Development and the founding Program Director of JAX Cancer Services where he established a patient derived tumor biology translational program in collaboration with over 20 clinical cancer centers. In addition, Neal is a co-founder and a former Chief Scientific Officer of ProNAi Therapeutics (now Sierra Oncology; NASDAQ: SRRA) and he has served as a senior research scientist in genomic technologies at Pharmacia. Neal received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from The University of Montana and served a postdoctoral fellowship in functional genomics at The Jackson Laboratory with John Schimenti (now at Cornell).