Arnab Chatterjee, PhD
After receiving his PhD in the lab of the late Professor Robert Grubbs at Caltech in 2002, Arnab joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) as a Principal Investigator in the chemistry department in 2002. His work over 9+ years has been focused on hit-to-lead and lead optimization in several medicinal chemistry projects ranging from a variety of therapeutic areas (neuroscience, oncology, respiratory disease and infectious diseases). The project teams he has worked with have produced 8 preclinical candidates optimized for both inhaled and oral formulations with three novel first-in-class compounds in clinical trials (including two for malaria infection) including Ganaplacide in Phase 3 for malaria. Since May 2012 he has been responsible for setting up and leading the chemistry group at the Calibr-Skaggs in La Jolla, CA working across a wide variety of disease areas including eight active lead optimization programs in various diseases including regenerative medicine, respiratory, infectious and childhood diseases. In total Dr. Chatterjee has 20+ years’ experience as a medicinal chemist and has developed multiple drugs currently in clinical trials and late-stage preclinical development at GNF and Calibr-Skaggs including running the ADME and PK group at Calibr-Skaggs. This includes three compounds in clinical development for infectious disease and regenerative medicine at Calibr-Skaggs. His research interests include application of novel synthetic methods to expedite the structural diversification in medicinal chemistry and cell-based lead optimization and in parallel integrating those efforts in gating preclinical ADME and pharmacokinetics studies in rodents to generate novel proof of concepts in relevant animal models.